The Fall of Reichenbach
by spandrella
Summary: A novelization of season 2, episode 3 of Sherlock. Also includes canon notes and an essay by the author.


Sherlock: The Reichenbach Fall

a novelization by

rk wright

" _What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done?"_

 _–Sherlock Holmes,_ A Study in Scarlet _(1887)_

 _On the very day I die,  
_ _The very last of my desires  
_ _Is that you take my broken body  
_ _And commit it to the fire,  
_ _And then when the fire is finished  
_ _Scrape the ashes in a tin,  
_ _Take them down to London's drinking reservoirs  
_ _And throw them in.  
_ _And then specks infinitesimal of my mortal remains  
_ _Will slide down seven million throats,  
_ _And into seven million veins,  
_ _And I will creep through their capillaries,  
_ _To the marrow of their bones.  
_ _And they will wake to bright new mornings,  
_ _And then wordlessly they'll know  
_ _That I remain.  
_ _-Frank Turner_

" _The most important things are the hardest things to say."_

 _–Stephen King_

 **Afterwards**

It was raining, a solid, drenching rain that matched John's mood.

He did not want to be here, but had nowhere else to go. He couldn't talk to Mrs Hudson—she was worse off than he was, in some ways. The Internet was full of conspiracy theorists and nutters and trolls and he'd deleted thousands of comments off his blog before shutting it down completely. Lestrade…he wasn't sure what Lestrade really thought. And wasn't sure he wanted to find out. Talking to Mycroft would end in violence. So, here he was. Back at the therapist.

"Why today?" asked Ella Thompson.

He replied with a question. "You want to hear me say it?"

"Eighteen months since our last appointment?"

"You read the papers."

"Sometimes."

"And you watch telly."

She shrugged neutrally.

"You know why I'm here. I'm here beca—" His voice gave out. He looked down at his lap for a long moment. Don't be stupid, John. Say it.

"What _happened_ , John?"

He lifted his eyes to look at her. She had put down her legal pad and wasn't taking notes. "Sher—" He stopped.

"You need to get it out."

He could say it if he didn't look at her. "My best friend. Sherlock Holmes.

"He's dead."

 **Before**

 **Three Months Earlier**

" _Falls of the Reichenbach_! Turner's masterpiece. Thankfully recovered, owing to the prodigious talent of Mr Sherlock Holmes."

Polite applause clattered in the exhibit hall of the art museum. The director approached Sherlock with a small neatly wrapped box, which he presented to Sherlock with a smile. "A small token of our gratitude," he explained.

Sherlock gave the box a cursory examination. "Diamond cufflinks. All my cuffs have buttons."

"He means thank you," said John to the director, whose smile had fallen at Sherlock's words.

"Do I?" murmured Sherlock.

"Just say it."

"Thank you," said Sherlock, smiling briefly at the man. The photographers in the room snapped photos as they shook hands.

The resulting congratulatory newspaper articles, of course, pleased no one: Sherlock was furious at being called an amateur, and Lestrade—along with, presumably, the rest of Scotland Yard—did not appreciate being mocked for "overlooking clues." Sherlock found his growing notoriety exasperating; he didn't want anyone other than himself putting his relationship (such as it was) with Scotland Yard in jeopardy. John, on the other hand, couldn't help feeling satisfaction and pride that his friend was getting the recognition he deserved.

The next media flurry, after Sherlock negotiated the safe return of a kidnapped banker to his family, was marginally better, as everyone—including Sherlock—insisted on describing Sherlock's role as "assisting in the investigation," rather than "following his own line and then bringing the police in at the last possible moment, when it became clear that not doing so would lead to someone (possibly himself) getting injured or arrested."

"Back together with my family, after my terrifying ordeal. And we have one person to thank for my deliverance—Sherlock Holmes," said the banker at the press conference, as his young son stepped over to Sherlock and handed him a gift-wrapped box. Sherlock gave the box a subtle shake. "Tie clip," he muttered to John. "I don't wear ties."

"Shh."

"Peter Ricoletti," said Lestrade, later that month, in the police press briefing room, "Number One on Interpol's Most Wanted list since 1982. Well, we got him. And there's one person we have to thank for giving us the decisive leads…with all his customary diplomacy and tact."

"Sarcasm," explained John to Sherlock out of the side of his mouth.

"Yes," agreed Sherlock.

Lestrade stepped over to shake Sherlock's hand and give him a small gift bag as the camera shutters snapped busily. "We all chipped in," he said to Sherlock, smiling wickedly.

Sherlock knew before he pulled off the tissue paper that it would be that ridiculous cap. But he smiled in a passable impression of a pleased person. "Oh," he said, and tried to put it in his pocket, but the photographers shouted at him in a chorus to put it on. Sherlock's smile didn't fade as much as sublimate, but there wasn't any reasonable way out of it.

"Just get it over with," said John, and Sherlock reluctantly put the hat on his head and tried to smile as the cameras flashed.

 _"Boffin,"_ Sherlock said furiously the next morning, throwing down the newspaper with the picture of himself on the front page. " _Boffin_ Sherlock Holmes."

"Everybody gets one," John told him philosophically.

"One what?"

"Tabloid nickname. Subo. Nasty Nick. Shouldn't worry, I'll probably get one soon."

"Page five, column six, first sentence. Why is it always the _hat_ photograph?"

" _Bachelor_ John Watson?"

"What sort of hat is it anyway?" He turned it over in his hands.

"Bachelor? What the hell are they implying?"

"Is it a cap? Why's it got two fronts?"

"It's a deer stalker. 'Frequently seen in the company of bachelor John Watson'?"

"How do you stalk a deer with a hat? What're you going to do, throw it?"

John was reading further down the page. " _Confirmed_ bachelor John Watson?"

"Is it a death Frisbee?"

"Okay, this is too much. We need to be more careful."

"It's got flaps. Ear flaps. It's an ear hat, John…What do you mean, more careful?"

"I mean, this isn't a deerstalker now, it's a Sherlock Holmes hat. I mean that you're not exactly a private detective anymore. You're _this far_ from famous."

"It'll pass," said Sherlock dismissively.

"It better pass. The press will turn, Sherlock, they always turn. And they'll turn on you."

Sherlock looked at him. "It really bothers you."

"What?"

"What people say."

"Yes."

"About me? I don't understand why it would upset you."

"Just try to keep a low profile. Find yourself a little case this week. Stay out of the news."

 **The Next Day**

 **Tower of London**

 **11:00am**

The ravens, as ever, were safely ensconced in the Tower, unperturbed by hordes of tourists roaming the grounds, taking pictures, staring down at the impossibly still water in Traitor's Gate, following the signs to the Crown Jewels exhibit, posing next to the Yeoman Warders in their black and red uniforms.

Stupid, stupid, stupid people, thought Moriarty, adjusting the touristy baseball cap on his head and taking pictures with his phone of anything and everything. This fortress of imprisonment and execution and torture, the _true_ soul of British power for a thousand years, and they'd turned it into a zoo. Pet ravens and pet tourists and tour guides in silly costumes. The Royal Family's jewellery box.

 **221B Baker Street**

 **11:00am**

When John came into the kitchen after his shower, he found Sherlock with his face buried in his microscope, ignoring the mobile chirping at him. "That's your phone," John told him, walking past a mannequin hanging from the ceiling by a noose and sitting down with the newspapers.

"Mmm. It keeps doing that."

"So. Did you just talk to him for a really long time?"

Sherlock looked up in momentary confusion, then remembered the mannequin. "Oh. Henry Fishgard never committed suicide. Bow Street Runners—missed everything."

"Pressing case, is it?"

"They're all pressing until they're solved."

 **Tower of London**

 **11:14am**

Moriarty shuffle-stepped through the security line with the tourists, amusing himself by thinking about the kill chutes that cattle trundle down, marching peacefully and stupidly to their deaths. He stepped through the metal detector without taking anything out of his pockets, and when it clanged in protest he smiled sheepishly at the guard and put his mobile in the dish the guard offered him. Don't mind me, Mr Guard, I'm just a dumb tourist, one of the cattle. He put his headphones in his ears so that nobody would talk to him, and turned on his theme song.

In the display room, he stood staring at the royal crown and sceptre for a moment, on display in a glass box resting on an ornate chair, all ready for a monarch to come and ornament himself.

 **London**

 **11:17am**

All across London, life was proceeding in the orderly but messy way that happens when eight millions of people are constantly tripping over and bumping into each other in a small geographic area. Bike messengers swooped in and out of traffic. Brokers watched stocks rise and fall over the edges of their teacups. Tourists bought tickets for the London Eye. Reporters chased stories. Inmates at Pentonville Prison waited, without optimism, for their parole hearings to begin. Security guards took a break from staring at black and white monitors and went for tea.

 **Tower of London**

 **11:32am**

Sherlock had not responded to any of the texts he'd sent. Alright then. Moriarty opened the app on his phone that he'd had specially made, and set the plan in motion.

The first thing that happened was that all the alarms went off, and everyone in the exhibit evacuated—with the exception, of course, of Moriarty, and a guard who tried to get him to leave and found himself sprayed in the face with an aerosol sedative instead. The security doors slammed shut, locking Moriarty inside the Tower of London with the Crown Jewels. He looked down at his phone and opened the second phase of the app.

While that was happening, Moriarty used a paint pen to write his message on the display case holding the crown jewels. He wrote in reverse letters so that it would be visible on the security cameras. Then he opened the final command of the app on his phone.

He stuck a piece of his gum to the exact centre of the glass, and into the centre of the gum, he pushed a tiny diamond—pushed until it displaced the gum and had direct contact with the glass. He took off his jacket and picked up a fire extinguisher from the corner, dancing a bit—he couldn't help it—to the Rossini opera in his headphones.

Glass makes such a delicious noise when it shatters.

 **Scotland Yard**

 **11:34am**

Donovan burst into Lestrade's office while he was eating his breakfast at his desk and reading the overnights. "Sir, there's been a break-in."

"Not our division."

"You'll want it." She filled him in on the way to the car.

"Hacked into Tower of bloody London security? How?" said Lestrade, turning the lights on in the cruiser and tearing across London. Donovan's phone rang. "Tell him we're already on our way," Lestrade told her, assuming it was the Chief Inspector.

Donovan listened for a moment, then hung up. "There's been another one. Another break-in. Bank of England," she said disbelievingly.

Lestrade cursed under his breath, but didn't change the course of the car. They were passing Covent Garden when Donovan's phone rang again. "What is it now?" asked Lestrade as she answered.

"Pentonville Prison."

"Oh, no."

 **221B Baker Street**

 **11:37am**

When Sherlock's phone beeped again, John put down his newspaper. "I'll get it, shall I?" he asked rhetorically, picking up Sherlock's phone. He read the text, then without a word crossed the room to where Sherlock still sat at his microscope and held out the phone.

"Not now, I'm busy," said Sherlock, not looking up.

"Sherlock—"

"Not now."

"He's back."

Sherlock raised his head and they looked at each other for a moment. Sherlock took the phone.

Come and play.

Tower Hill.

Jim Moriarty x

 **Tower of London**

 **12:02pm**

When the police disabled the locks and burst in, fully armed, Moriarty was sitting on the throne wearing the crown jewels. "No rush," he told them.

Lestrade and Donovan watched the unis put Moriarty in the back of a panda car. Lestrade had Moriarty's phone and was flipping through it. Even without Moriarty's obvious message on the Waterloo Barracks security footage, he would've known to call Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock hadn't been surprised when he called. Indeed, he was already on his way.

Lestrade didn't bring them down to the crime scene when they arrived. Instead, he brought them to the security office and showed them the footage.

"That glass is tougher than anything," said Lestrade, as they watched Moriarty stick his gum to the glass and push his finger against it.

"Tougher than crystallized carbonate?" asked Sherlock. "He used a diamond."

Lestrade used the keyboard to change the camera view and paused the frame at the moment just before Moriarty shattered the glass with the fire extinguisher.

GET SHERLOCK, he'd written on the glass. With a little happy face in the O.

The game, thought Sherlock, is on.

The case came up for trial with unusual swiftness. The Crown had all the evidence it could ever ask for—suspect in custody, suspect on multiple surveillance cameras, suspect _caught with the jewels on his person_ —and the barrister for the defence filed no pre-trial motions, no requests for delay, nothing but a not guilty plea.

Someone at the Yard leaked a still from the security footage, of Moriarty about to shatter the glass, GET SHERLOCK visible for all to see. The press went wild, camped out in front of Baker Street, trying to pin down the connection between the private detective and the consulting criminal. Sherlock and John refused to talk to them, but they didn't go away, particularly after the Crown issued Sherlock a summons to appear as a witness at Moriarty's trial.

"Remember—" said John, in the back of the panda car on the way to Old Bailey.

"Yes."

"Remember what they told you. Don't try to be clever. And please, just keep it simple and brief."

"I'm confident the star witness at the trial should come across as intelligent."

"Intelligent, fine. Let's give 'smartass' a wide berth."

"I'll just be myself."

"Are you listening to me?"

They brought Moriarty into the courtroom early, before the crowd. He was surrounded left, right, and centre by six uniformed guards. As they got him in the box, a uni stepped forward to take off his handcuffs.

"Would you mind slipping your hand into my pocket?" he asked her, looking at her with sleepy, unblinking eyes. At a nod from the guard in charge, she slid her hand inside the hip pocket of his dress pants. She fished around for a moment before coming up with a piece of gum, which she placed in his open mouth. "Thanks," he told her, and she could not help but feel that he was laughing at her.

Sherlock left John outside the courtroom and went to the toilet. When he came out of the stall, a woman was there, waiting for him. He ignored her and started washing his hands.

"You're him," she said, slightly breathlessly, dropping her handbag.

"Wrong toilet," he told her.

"I'm a big fan. I read your cases. Follow them all. Sign my shirt, would you?" She opened her jacket and held up a marker, stepping so close to him that they were practically touching.

"There are two types of fans," Sherlock informed her.

"Oh?"

"Catch-Me-Before-I-Kill-Again: Type A."

"Uh huh. What's Type B?"

"The-Metro's-Just-A-Taxi-Ride-Away."

She smiled. "Guess which one I am."

He looked down at her. "Neither."

"Really?"

"No, you're not a fan at all. There's marks on your forearm. Edge of a desk. You've been typing in a hurry, probably. Pressure on, facing a deadline."

"That all?"

"There's a smudge of ink on your wrist and the bulge in your left jacket pocket."

"Bit of a giveaway."

"The smudge is deliberate, it's just to see if I'm as good as they say I am." He took her wrist and sniffed it. "Oil based. Used in newspaper print. Drawn on with an index finger. Journalist. Unlikely you'd get your hands dirty at the press. You put that there to test me."

"Wow, I'm liking you."

"You mean I'd make a great feature. 'Sherlock Holmes, The Man Beneath The Hat?'"

"Kitty Riley. Pleased to meet you." She held out her hand.

He didn't take it. "No. I'll just save you the trouble of asking. No, I won't give you an interview, no, I don't want the money." He headed for the door.

She cut him off. "You and John Watson. Just platonic? Can I put you down for a 'no' there as well? There's all sorts of gossip in the press about you. Sooner or later, you're going to need someone on your side. Someone to set the record straight." She slid a business card into his breast pocket.

"You think you're the girl for that job, do you?"

"I'm smart. And you can trust me. Totally."

"Smart? Okay. Investigative journalist? Good. Want to look at me and tell me what you see? If you're that skilful you don't need an interview, you can just…read what you need. No? Okay, my turn." He stepped back and looked her up and down again. "I look at you and I see someone who's still waiting for their first big scoop so that their editor will notice them. You're wearing an expensive skirt that's been re-hemmed twice. Only posh skirt you've got. And your nails. You can't afford to do them that often. I see someone who's hungry. I don't see smart. And I definitely don't see trustworthy. But I'll give you a quote if you like, three little words." He lifted the digital recorder which was, of course, already recording, out of her jacket pocket and spoke directly into it. "You. Repel. Me." He dropped the recorder and walked out of the toilet, leaving her standing there.

Sherlock did not get a chance to catch up with John, as the bailiff was waiting outside the courtroom to escort him to the witness box. Sherlock swore to tell the truth, and the prosecuting barrister stood up to commence the examination. The questions about his professional life were stunningly dull, but he answered them patiently. It was not until the conversation turned to Moriarty's professional dealings that they hit their first snag.

"A consulting criminal?" clarified the prosecuting barrister, repeating what Sherlock had just said.

"Yes."

"Your words. Can you expand on that answer?"

"James Moriarty is for hire."

"A tradesman?"

"Yes."

"But not the sort who'd fix your heating."

"No, the sort who'd plant a bomb or stage an assassination, but I'm sure he'd make a pretty decent job of your boiler."

"Would you describe him as—"

"Leading."

"What?"

"Can't do that, you're leading the witness." Sherlock nodded at the defence barrister. "He'll object and the judge'll uphold."

Oh, here we go, thought John, sitting in the gallery.

"Mr Holmes—" began the judge.

"Ask me how. _How_ would I describe him. What opinion have I formed of him. They don't teach you this?"

"Mr Holmes, we're fine without your help," said the judge.

" _How_ would you describe this man, his character?" asked the barrister.

"First mistake. James Moriarty isn't a man at all. He's a spider. A spider at the centre of a web. A criminal web with a thousand threads and he knows precisely how each and every single one of them dances."

Nobody breathed in the courtroom as the two men looked at each other.

The prosecutor cleared her throat. "And how long—"

"No, no, don't. Don't do that. That's very…not a good question."

"Mr Holmes," said the judge.

"How long have I known him? Not really your best line of inquiry. We met twice, five minutes in total. I pulled a gun, he tried to blow me up. I felt we had a special something."

Moriarty raised his eyebrows in feigned flattered shock.

"Miss Sorrell?" the judge asked the prosecutor, incredulous. "Are you seriously claiming this man is an expert? After knowing the accused for just five minutes?"

"Two minutes would have made me an expert, five was ample," said Sherlock testily.

"Mr Holmes, that's a matter for the jury," said the judge.

"Oh, really? One librarian, two teachers, two high pressure jobs, probably the City. Foreman's a medical secretary, trained abroad, judging by her shorthand."

"Mr Holmes—"

"Seven are married and two are having an affair…with each other, it would seem. Oh, and they've just had tea and biscuits. Would you like to know who ate the wafer?"

"Mr Holmes!" said the judge. "You've been called here to answer Miss Sorrell's questions. Not to give us a display of your intellectual prowess. Keep your answers brief and to the point. Anything else will be treated as contempt. Do you think you can survive for just a few moments without showing off?"

"What did I say? I said, Don't get clever," John said later, as he paid Sherlock's bail and Sherlock retrieved his belongings from the guard.

"I can't just turn it on and off like a telly. Well?"

"Well what?"

"You were there for the whole thing. Up in the gallery, start to finish."

"Like you said it would be. Sat on his backside, never even stirred."

Sherlock subsided into thought and the cab ride back to Baker Street was quiet. When they re-entered the flat, though, he started pacing. "Moriarty's not mounting any defence," he said.

"Bank of England. Tower of London. Pentonville," said John. "Three of the most secure places in the country. Six weeks ago Moriarty breaks in, no one knows how or why. All we know is—"

"—he ended up in custody," said Sherlock, as if that explained everything.

"Don't do that," John told him.

"Do what?"

"The look."

"Look?"

"You're doing the look again."

"I can't see it, can I?"

John nodded at the mirror on the wall. Sherlock looked at himself. "It's my face."

"Yes, and it's doing a thing. You're doing a we-both-know-what's-really-going-on-here face."

"But we do."

"No. _I_ don't. Which is why I find The Face so annoying."

Sherlock sighed. "If Moriarty wanted the jewels, he'd have them. If he wanted those prisoners free, they'd be out on the street. The only reason he's still in a prison cell right now is because he chose to be there. Somehow this is part of his scheme."

The next morning, Moriarty's barrister, looking as if he scarcely believed his own words, declined to offer any evidence or call any witnesses, and rested his case. Moriarty turned around and looked and looked at John.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, James Moriarty stands accused of several counts of attempted burglary. Crimes, which if he's found guilty, will elicit a very long custodial sentence, and yet, his legal team has chosen to offer no evidence whatsoever to support their plea. I find myself in the unusual position of recommending a verdict whole-heartedly. You must find him guilty."

That was the instruction that the judge gave the jury. They obediently filed out of the courtroom to deliberate.

They were out of the room for six minutes before they had a verdict. The judge barely had time to visit the loo.

"Not guilty. They found him not guilty," said John furiously as he walked away from the Old Bailey, on his mobile with Sherlock, who had stayed at Baker Street. "No defence and Moriarty's walked free." He waited a moment, but Sherlock did not reply. "…Sherlock? Are you listening? He's out. You know he'll be coming after you."

Oh, indeed. Sherlock hung up his phone, and went to put the kettle on.

When Moriarty arrived, Sherlock was practicing the violin. He heard the door creak open behind him, and stopped playing mid-note. "Most people knock," he said without turning around. "But then, you're not most people, I suppose. Kettle's just boiled."

Moriarty helped himself to an apple from the coffee table. "Johann Sebastian would be appalled," he said. He looked forlornly at the chairs in front of the fireplace. "May I?"

"Please." Sherlock gestured with his bow toward John's armchair. Moriarty ignored him and sat in Sherlock's chair. Sherlock sat in John's without comment.

"You know, when he was on his death bed," said Moriarty, pulling out a small pen knife and cutting into the apple, "he heard his son at the piano playing one of his pieces. The boy stopped before he got to the end—"

"—and the dying man jumped out of his bed and ran straight to the piano and finished it."

"Couldn't cope with an unfinished melody."

"Neither can you. It's why you've come." Sherlock poured tea and carefully added a spoonful of sugar to both cups.

"Oh, be honest. You're just a tiny bit pleased."

"What, with the verdict?" Sherlock handed Moriarty a cup of tea.

"With me. Out on the streets. Every fairy tale needs a good old fashioned villain. You need me. Or you're nothing. Because we're just alike, you and I. Except you're boring. You're on the side of the angels."

"It's up to the jury, of course."

"I got into the Tower of London. You think I can't worm my way into twelve hotel rooms?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. Of course, it was obvious. "The cable network."

"Every hotel bedroom has a personalised TV screen. And every person has their pressure point. Someone that they want to protect from harm. Easy-peasy." He took a sip of tea.

"So how are you going to do it?" asked Sherlock. "Burn me?"

"Oh, that's the problem. The final problem. Have you worked out what it is yet? What's the final problem? I did tell you. But did you listen?" Moriarty replaced his cup in the saucer and tapped his fingers restlessly on his knee. "How hard do you find it? Having to say 'I don't know'?"

Sherlock replaced his cup in his saucer as well. "I don't know."

"Oh, that's clever. That's very clever. Speaking of clever, have you told your little friends yet?"

"Told them what?"

"Why I broke into all those places and never took anything."

"No."

"But you understood."

"Obviously."

"Off you go, then." Moriarty took a sip of tea.

"You want me to tell you what you already know?"

"No. I want you to prove that you know it."

"You didn't take anything because you don't need to."

"Good."

"You'll never need to take anything ever again."

"Very good. Because?"

"Because nothing. Nothing in the Bank of England, the Tower of London, or Pentonville Prison could possibly match the value of the key that could get you into all three."

"I can open any door, anywhere, with a few tiny lines of computer code. No such thing as a private bank account now. They're all mine. No such thing as secrecy. I own secrecy. Nuclear codes? I could blow up NATO in alphabetical order. In a world of locked rooms, the man with the key is king. And, honey, you should see me in a crown." He smiled, his strangely blank smile that went nowhere near his eyes.

"You were advertising all the way through the trial. You were showing the world what you can do."

"And you were helping. Big client list. Rogue governments. Intelligence communities. Terror cells. They all want me. Suddenly, I'm Mr Sex."

"You can break any bank. What do you care about the highest bidder?"

"I don't. I just like to watch them all competing. 'Daddy loves me the best!' Aren't ordinary people adorable? Well, you know. You've got John. I should get myself a live-in one."

"Why are you doing all this?" Sherlock asked him.

"It's so funny."

"You don't want money or power. Not really. What is it all for?"

"I want to solve the problem. Our problem. The final problem. It's going to start very soon, Sherlock. The fall." He whistled the whine of a descending bomb. "But don't be scared. Falling's just like flying except there's a more permanent destination." He looked at Sherlock, his eyes wide and empty.

Sherlock stood up. "I never liked riddles."

Moriarty stood as well. "Learn to. Because I owe you a fall, Sherlock. I. Owe. You." He left the flat, leaving the apple with the knife stuck in it on Sherlock's armchair.

He had used the knife to carve in an I and a U, with a bite taken out in between for the O.

The press was full of speculation for the better part of a week. Even though Sherlock refused any and all interview requests, the jurors all fled, and Moriarty seemed to vanish into thin air, it seemed that every reporter in the country had a theory on what had happened, and what came next.

John tried to get Sherlock to leave town, take a holiday, even for just a week, but with no luck. Sherlock not only refused to leave London, he practically refused to leave the flat, running malodorous experiments in the kitchen, or lurking in his armchair for hours on end, staring at the ceiling and not speaking. After awhile, John stopped trying, knowing that nothing would shake Sherlock's mood until either Moriarty pulled something or other, or another case caught his interest.

But the first sign of trouble didn't happen to Sherlock. It happened to John.

John stopped at an ATM, slid in his card and entered his PIN. Instead of spitting money at him, the ATM chirruped politely.

There is a problem with your card. Please wait.

Thank you for your patience John.

John blinked at it, then turned around at the sound of a car pulling up next to the curb behind him. He was not surprised to see a large, black sedan with dark windows waiting for him.

The car—empty but for a silent driver—took him to a big, Victorian mansion just off Pall Mall. There was no indication of the building's purpose except for a small, gold plaque nailed under the mail slot that read The Diogenes Club. John let himself in, and, passing through the empty entrance hall, found himself in a wood-panelled carpeted sitting room. There were a half-dozen small tables made of dark wood, flanked by armchairs, scattered around the room. About half the tables were filled with elderly men in suits reading books or newspapers, tumblers of alcohol resting on the tables. Nobody looked up when he came in. He chose a man at random and approached him. "Um…Excuse me, I'm looking for Mycroft Holmes?"

The man did not look up, though John caught several of the other men in the room casting him sidelong glances.

"Would you happen to know if he's around at all?"

The man didn't answer.

"Can you not hear me?" asked John, trying to keep impatience out of his voice.

The man looked up at him, spluttering furiously, but not speaking.

"Yes, all right," said John, raising his hands and taking a step back in an apologetic fashion. He raised his voice to the room at large. "Anyone? Anyone at all know where Mycroft Holmes is? I've been asked to meet him here." One elderly man reached out with his cane to push a button on the wall. A bell clanged somewhere in the distance. "No takers? Right. Am I invisible? Can you actually see me?" Two men in identical suits with tails and noise-muffling booties over their shoes entered, and the elderly gentleman gestured at them furiously. For just a moment, John was glad to see them. "Ah, thanks gents, I've been asked to meet Mycroft Hol—" The butlers took firm hold of his arms, one clapped a hand over his mouth, and they dragged him bodily from the room, down the hall, and through another set of doors that led into what appeared to be a library, lit from above by sunlight streaming through windows high in the walls. Waiting for him, pouring brandy from a crystal decanter, was Mycroft Holmes. The men released John's arms and left as swiftly as they had come.

"Tradition, John," Mycroft said, by way of apology. "Our traditions define us. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the Stranger's Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, allowed. Three offenses render the talker liable to expulsion."

"So total silence is traditional, is it? You can't even say 'Pass the sugar'?"

"Three-quarters of the diplomatic service and half the government front bench, all sharing one tea trolley? It's for the best, believe me. We don't want a repeat of 1972. But we can talk in here."

John picked up a copy of _The Sun_ from the end table. "You read this stuff?"

"It caught my eye."

"Mmhmm."

"Saturday they're doing a big exposé." There was a teaser article on the front page. "Sherlock Holmes: The Shocking Truth." The reporter, Kitty Riley, appeared to be interviewing someone named Richard Brook, who said he had known Sherlock for decades but whom John had never heard of.

"I'd love to know where she got her information," said John.

"Someone called Brook. Recognize the name?"

John put down the newspaper. "School friend, maybe?"

Mycroft laughed. "Of Sherlock's? But that's not why I asked you here." He picked up two file folders from a table and handed them to John before sitting in an armchair. John opened the folder to see a picture of a man, bald and burly. The photograph had clearly been taken with a long lens camera, and the man was unaware that he was being photographed. "Who's that?" he asked.

"Don't know?"

"No."

"Never seen his face before?"

"Umm…"

"He's taken a flat in Baker Street, two doors down from you."

"I was thinking of doing a drinks thing for the neighbours."

"I'm not sure you'll want to. Sulaimany—Albanian hit squad. Expertly trained killer, living less than twenty feet from your front door."

"Well, it's a great location. Jubilee Line's ending."

"John—"

"What's it got to do with me?"

"Yurchenko, Ludmilla." Mycroft handed him another photo to look at. A woman this time, also unaware she was being photographed, as she got into—or out of—a car parked on the curb.

"Actually, I think I've seen her," said John.

"Russian killer. She's taken the flat opposite."

"Okay, I'm seeing a pattern here."

"In fact, four top international assassins relocated within spitting distance of 221B." He handed John a pile of photos to look through. "Anything you care to share with me?"

"I'm moving?"

"It's not hard to guess the common denominator, is it?"

"You think this is Moriarty?"

"He promised Sherlock he'd come back."

"If this was Moriarty, we'd be dead already."

"If not Moriarty, then whom?"

"Why don't you talk to Sherlock, if you're so concerned about him?" Mycroft looked down at his brandy without answering. "Oh, god, don't tell me—"

"Too much history between us, John. Old scores. Resentments."

"Nicked all his Smurfs? Broke his action man?" John put down the photos and stood up to go.

"We both know what's coming, John. Moriarty is obsessed. He's sworn to destroy his only rival."

"So you want me to watch out for your brother because he won't accept your help?" asked John, thinking, _Isn't this what you asked me to do two years ago when I first moved in, and didn't I say no then?_

"If it's not too much trouble." Mycroft smiled superciliously.

John let himself out.

Back at Baker Street, in spite of his determination to not fall for Mycroft's cloak-and-dagger scare tactics, John could not help but look up and down the block perhaps a bit more carefully than usual, but saw nobody suspicious hanging around.

An envelope was sitting propped up on the stoop at 221 Baker Street. It was a heavy and cream-colored, sealed with a lump of red wax—sealed, John saw, with a stamp shaped like a bird. He stuck his finger in between the folds and tore the envelope open, and his hand was showered with stale bread crumbs. He stared at it, bewildered.

"Scuse, mate," said a voice to his right, and John apologized and stepped back for a burly bloke with tattoos down both arms, carrying a ladder into 221. He walked past the stairs and into Mrs Hudson's flat. John followed him in and climbed the stairs to the first floor.

"Sherlock," he said, still on the stairs, "Something weird—" He stopped in the doorway. Lestrade and Donovan were there. "What's going on?"

"Kidnapping," said Sherlock.

"Rufus Bruhl, the ambassador to the US," said Lestrade, looking up from the file folder he was holding.

"He's in Washington, isn't he?"

"Not him, his children. Max and Claudette, age seven and nine. They're at St Aldate's."

"Posh boarding place down in Surrey," put in Donovan.

"School broke up, all the other boarders went home. Just a few kids remained, including these two," said Lestrade.

"The kids have vanished," said Donovan.

"The ambassador's asked for you personally," said Lestrade to Sherlock.

"The Reichenbach hero," said Donovan drily, as Sherlock pulled on his coat and walked out the door.

"Isn't it great to be working with a celebrity?" Lestrade said to nobody in particular as they followed Sherlock out.

The drive to Surrey was long and mostly silent as London sprawl gave way to the Green Belt woodlands. St. Aldate's inhabited a large, old manor house on a perfectly green lawn. The grounds were crawling with officers in high-vis jackets. Lestrade parked up the drive a bit and walked next to Sherlock. "That's Mrs McKenzie, the housemistress," he said, nodding at the elderly woman leaning against a panda car, wrapped in a sweater. "Go easy."

Sherlock stopped in front of her. "Mrs McKenzie, you're in charge of pupil welfare, and yet you left this place wide open last night. What are you, an idiot, a drunk, or a criminal? Quickly, tell me!" He leaned in threateningly and yanked the blanket from around her shoulders.

She burst into tears. "All the doors and windows were properly bolted. No one, not even me, went into their rooms last night. You have to believe me."

Sherlock's whole manner softened. "I do. I just wanted you to speak quickly." He raised his voice to the party at large. "Mrs McKenzie will need to breathe into a bag now." He climbed the steps and entered the school.

Donovan and Lestrade brought them upstairs to the girl's room first. It was a large-ish room, though John reflected that it probably felt significantly less large when ten nine-year-old girls were inside of it. "Six grand a term, you'd expect them to keep the kids safe here," he mused, thinking that he'd expect six grand to also buy something other than metal frames and thin mattresses for beds, but then, that was posh English boarding school for you. "So the other kids had all left on their holidays?" Sherlock opened one of the cabinets that the girls stored their personal belongings in, then knelt and looked under Claudette's bed.

"They were the only two sleeping on this floor," said Lestrade. "Absolutely no sign of a break in. The intruder must have been hidden inside someplace."

Sherlock momentarily picked up and then dropped a lacrosse stick, then opened the girl's footlocker at the end of her bed. His eyes scanned all the nine-year-old-girl detritus and pulled out the one thing that didn't fit—a large envelope made of heavy, creamy paper and sealed shut with a circle of dark red wax. He tilted the envelope and slid out an old edition of _Grimm's Fairy Tales_. Sherlock examined the book closely, but it was just a book. "Show me where the brother slept," he said, standing up.

The boy's room was on the top floor, under the eaves, in what once upon a time was probably the servants' quarters. The beds were the same generic boarding school issue, but there were only two of them. Sherlock stood at the head of the bed and faced the door, which was half smoky glass. It would've let light in from the hall all night long. He could see something of the little boy in this room, it seemed, better than he could see in the chaotic room of the girl. "The boy sleeps there every night, gazing at the only light source outside in the corridor. He'd recognize every shape. Every outline. The silhouette of everyone who came to the door."

"Okay," said Lestrade. "So?"

"So, someone approaches the door who he doesn't recognize. An intruder. Maybe he can even see the outline of a weapon. What would he do, in the precious few seconds before they came into the room? How would he use them if not to cry out? This little boy, this _particular_ little boy who reads all of those spy books." He pointed at the children's chapter books stuffed into the nightstand. "What would he do?"

John found himself imagining what childhood Sherlock would do. "Leave a sign?"

But Sherlock was already sniffing, tentatively at first, and then more obviously, spinning in place to try and locate whatever he was smelling. He picked up the boy's cricket bat and inhaled all along its length, then putting the bat down and searching the floor around the nightstand and in between the boys' beds. He came up with an empty glass bottle and stared at it for a moment.

"Get Anderson," he said to Lestrade.

It took several minutes to find the crime scene technician and explain what was needed. But when the windows were blacked out and Sherlock lit the handheld UV lamp, they all saw immediately what he was looking for. _HELP US_ , the silver ghostlike letters said, glowing on the wall above the boy's bed, written there in the linseed oil he usually used on his cricket bat.

"Not much use," said Anderson. "Doesn't lead us to the kidnapper."

"Brilliant, Anderson," said Sherlock, not looking up.

"Brilliant?"

"Yes. Brilliant impression of an idiot." Sherlock was shining the light on the floor, and now he pointed at it. Silver footprints shone up at them.

"The boy made a trail for us," said John, incredulous.

"The boy was made to walk ahead of them," said Sherlock, reading the tracks.

"On tiptoe?" said John, also examining.

"Indicates anxiety. Gun held to his head. The girl was pulled beside him. Dragged sideways. He had his left arm cradled around her neck." They followed the trail down the hall, until the linseed oil dried up and the trail petered out.

"That's the end of it," said Anderson. "We don't know where they went from here. Tells us nothing after all."

"You're right, Anderson. Nothing. Except his shoe size, his height, his gait, his walking pace." Sherlock tore down one of the blackout curtains that Anderson had put up and knelt down in the patch of light, pulling a Petri dish and his sample-gathering kit out of his coat pocket, smiling to himself.

John knelt next to him. "Having fun?"

Sherlock did not look up. "Starting to."

"Maybe don't do the smiling. Kidnapped children?" He left Sherlock to gather his evidence.

John waited until they were in a cab bound for London, away from Lestrade and Donovan, before questioning Sherlock further. "But how could he get past the CCTV? If all the doors were locked?"

"He walked in when they weren't locked."

"A stranger can't just walk into a school like that."

"Anyone can walk in anywhere if they pick the right moment. Yesterday, end of term, parents milling around, chauffeurs, staff? What's one more stranger among that lot? He was waiting for them. All he had to do was find a place to hide." Sherlock leaned forward and asked the driver to drop them at St Bart's, rather than Baker Street.

They ran into Molly walking out as they walked in. "Molly!" said Sherlock, spinning her around and leading her back the way she'd come.

"Oh, hullo, I'm just going out."

"No you're not."

"I've got a lunch date."

"Cancel it. You're having lunch with me." He pulled two bags of crisps out of his pockets to show how he'd planned ahead.

"What?"

"Need your help. It's one of your boyfriends, we're trying to track him down. He's been a bit naughty."

"It's Moriarty?" asked John, blinking at Sherlock.

"Of course it's Moriarty," said Sherlock.

"Jim actually wasn't even my boyfriend," said Molly. "We went out three times. I ended—"

"Yes. And then he stole the Crown Jewels, broke into the Bank of England, and organized a prison break at Pentonville. For the sake of law and order, I suggest you avoid all future attempts at a relationship, Molly."

"Oil, John," he said ten minutes later, settling in on his usual stool. "The oil in the kidnapper's footprint—it'll lead us to Moriarty. All the chemical traces on his shoe have been preserved. The sole of a shoe is like a passport. If we're lucky, we can see everything that he's been up to." He prepped a slide with one of his oil samples and clicked it into place in the microscope.

Molly prepped another sample and checked the Ph. "Alkaline," she reported.

Sherlock's eyeballs were buried in the microscope. "Thank you, John," he said absently.

"Molly," she corrected him.

"Yes."

Test after test, and Sherlock started writing down elements like a recipe he was concocting. 1. Chalk. 2. Asphalt. 3. Brickdust. 4. Vegetation. 5. Glycerine molecules of unknown type. Hours passed under the patient humming of the fluorescent lights. John had retired to a corner and was looking at copies of the crime scene photos that one of Lestrade's staff had dropped off.

"What did you mean, I O U?" asked Molly in between tests, twisting her hands. "You said I owe you. You were muttering it while you were working."

Sherlock did not look up from the microscope. "Nothing. Mental note."

"You're a bit like my dad. He's dead. No, sorry—"

"Molly, please don't feel the need to make conversation. It's really not your area."

Molly ignored him. "When he was—dying, he was always cheerful. He was lovely. Except when he thought no one could see. I saw him once. He looked—sad."

"Molly—"

"You look sad. When you think he can't see you."

Sherlock did not move, but his eyebrows lifted momentarily, towards John on the other side of the room.

"Are you okay? And don't just say you are, because I know what that means—looking sad when you think no one can see you."

He pulled his face away from the microscope at last and looked at her. "But you can see me."

"I don't count," she said. "What I'm trying to say is, if there's anything I can do, anything you need, anything at all, you can have me. No. I just mean—I mean—if there's anything you need, it's fine."

"What could I need from you?"

"Nothing. I dunno. You could probably say thank you, actually."

"Thank you," he said.

"I'm just going to go and get some crisps, do you want anything? It's okay. I know you don't." She started to walk away.

"Well, actually, maybe I—"

"I know you don't." She left the lab. Sherlock stared after her, an uncharacteristic expression of confusion on his face.

"Sherlock," called John from across the room.

"Hrm?"

"This envelope that was in her trunk," said John, crossing the room to show him the picture. "There was another one."

"What?"

John dug into the pockets of the jacket he'd been wearing earlier. "On our doorstep. Found it today. Yes, look at that. Look at that, exactly the same seal." He handed Sherlock the photo and the envelope from Baker Street.

Sherlock opened the envelope and dug his fingers into the contents. "Bread crumbs."

"Uh huh. It was there when I got back."

"A little trail of breadcrumbs. A hardback copy of fairy tales. Two children led into the forest by a wicked father follow a little trail of breadcrumbs." Who was being lured into the oven, he wondered—Max and Claudette, or himself and John.

"That's Hansel and Gretel. What sort of kidnapper leaves clues?"

"The sort that likes to boast, the sort that thinks it's all a game. He sat in our flat and he said these exact words to me—'All fairy tales need a good old fashioned villain.'" He looked at his ingredients, the mysterious glycerine molecule. "The fifth substance. It's part of the tale. The witch's house. The glycerine molecule." He stared in blank thought for a moment, and then he had it. "PGPR!" He stood up and grabbed his coat.

"What's that?"

"It's used in making chocolate." He tossed John his jacket and they were out the door.

Lestrade met them at the elevators when they arrived at his office in the Yard. "This fax arrived an hour ago," he said, handing it to Sherlock. _Hurry Up. They're Dying!_ said the sheet of paper. Handwritten, block letters. No signature. Obviously. "What've you got for us?"

"We need to find a place in the city where all five of these things intersect," said Sherlock, handing Lestrade his list.

"Chalk, asphalt, brick dust, vegetation? What the hell is this—chocolate?"

"I think we're looking for a disused sweet factory."

"We need to narrow that down. A sweet factory with asphalt?"

"No, no. Too general. Something more specific. Chalk, chalky clay, that's a far thinner band of geology."

"Brick dust?"

"Building site. Bricks from the 1950s."

Lestrade buried his face in his hands. "There's thousands of building sites in London."

"I've got people out looking," said Sherlock.

"So've I!"

"Homeless Network. Faster than the police. Far more relaxed about taking bribes." As if on cue, his phone started alerting him to messages—members of the Network sending him photos of various possible sites. He needed no more than a glance to dismiss most, but one gave him pause. "John," he said, holding up the phone, which was showing a picture of a flower. " _Rhododendron ponticom_. It matches." His eyes widened in revelation. "Addlestone."

Lestrade looked up from the computer he was bent over. "What?"

"There's a mile of disused factories between the river and the park. It matches everything."

"Come on!" shouted Lestrade to his team, grabbing his coat and following Sherlock and John to the elevators.

The force that Lestrade and Donovan managed to assemble on short notice, during the drive back to Surrey, was fairly impressive. Lestrade dispatched them to spread out and search all the factories along the stretch of the river.

It was Sherlock who stumbled upon the nest of flattened cardboard boxes and empty candy wrappers. There was a candle on a plate. He put his fingertips to the wick. "This was alight moments ago," he said to John, then raised his voice to all who could hear. "They're still here!" He looked down at the rubbish. "Sweet wrappers? What's he been feeding you, Hansel and Gretel?" He licked one of the wrappers experimentally, then winced and spat. "Mercury."

"What?" said Lestrade, coming up behind.

"The papers, they're painted with mercury. Lethal. The more of the stuff they ate—"

"It was killing them," finished John.

"It's not enough to kill them on its own," he said, looking around. "Taken in large enough quantities, eventually it would kill them. He didn't need to be there for the execution. It's murder by remote control. He could be a thousand miles away. The hungrier they got, the more they ate, the faster they died." Admiration crept into his voice. "Neat."

"Sherlock," said John, a warning tone in his voice.

"Over here!" came Donovan's shout, and they all ran to the back of the factory, where the children were curled up against an industrial breaker box, chocolate smeared over their exhausted faces.

Lestrade gave in and told Sherlock that he could talk to the girl, but not until after the official interviews had been done. So they waited in an empty office back at Scotland Yard, Sherlock pacing, John sitting. He turned as the door opened.

"Right, then," said Donovan, standing in the doorway with Lestrade behind her. "The professionals have finished, if the amateurs want to go in and have their turn."

"Now remember, she's in shock," cautioned Lestrade. "And she's seven years old. So anything you can do to…well…"

"Not be myself?" asked Sherlock.

"Yeah. Might be helpful."

A plainclothes officer was sitting with Claudette, who looked tired and wan. She was looking down at her lap when Sherlock and John came in the room.

"Claudette," said Sherlock, "I—"

He didn't get any farther, because Claudette looked up at him and started to scream hysterically. She stood, ready to run, but the plainclothes officer hugged her protectively.

Lestrade reacted first. "Get out!" he said, grabbing Sherlock's arm and pulling him back into the hallway, out of Claudette's line of sight.

"It makes no sense," said John, once they got to Lestrade's office.

"Kid's traumatized. Something about Sherlock reminds her of the kidnapper," said Lestrade.

"What's she said?" asked John.

"Hasn't uttered another syllable," said Donovan, coming in behind them.

"And the boy?"

"Nah, he's unconscious," said Lestrade. "Still in Intensive Care."

Sherlock stood staring out of Lestrade's windows, listening to them talk. In the office building across the street, a dark floor of offices suddenly came flickering to light. Three of the windows had been spraypainted from the inside, one letter per window.

I O U

They stayed lit for only a few seconds, then the floor went dark again.

Sherlock felt a weight settle around his shoulders. The workings of a net, beginning to wrap itself around him.

"Don't let it get to you," said Lestrade, and Sherlock could tell he hadn't noticed anything across the street. "I always feel like screaming when you walk into a room. Actually, most people. Come on." He left the office. John followed.

Donovan hung back. "Brilliant work you did, finding those kids from just a footprint. Really amazing."

"Thank you," he said, walking past her.

"Unbelievable," she added to his back as he walked down the hall.

"You okay?" asked John, out on the street, as they waited for a taxi to pull up.

Sherlock did not look at him. "Thinking. This is my cab, you get the next one."

"Why?"

"You might talk." Sherlock slammed the cab door and it drove away.

Lestrade was on his way out when he saw Donovan in the evidence room with all the bagged stuff from the kidnapping. She wasn't working with it, just standing there contemplating it. "Problem?" he asked her, walking into the room.

"A footprint," she said. "It's all he has. A footprint."

"Yeah, well…you know what he's like. CSI Baker Street."

"Well, our boys couldn't have done it."

"That's why we need him, he's better."

"That's one explanation."

Lestrade gave her a long look. "And what's the other?"

"Only he could have found the evidence," said Donovan carefully. Lestrade gave her a long look, and then beckoned her back to his office.

"And then the girl screams her head off when she sees him," said Donovan, picking up where she'd left off. "A man she's never seen before. Unless she has seen him before."

"What's your point?"

"You know what my point is, you just don't want to think about it."

"You're not seriously suggesting he's involved?" asked Lestrade.

"I think we have to entertain the possibility," said Anderson from the doorway, where he'd been listening.

Sherlock's cab had been silent for maybe five minutes when the little TV screen set in the back of the front seat turned on and started trying to sell Sherlock diamond bracelets.

"Could you turn this off, please?" Sherlock asked the driver. The cabbie didn't answer. "Could you turn this off?" he repeated, louder.

The picture started to flicker and roll in and out. The set changed from the Home Shopping Network to a cheap backdrop of clouds. A familiar face tipped lopsidedly into the frame, and Sherlock stopped trying to get the cabbie to turn it off.

"Hello!" said Moriarty, smiling broadly. "Are you ready for the story? This is the story of Sir Boast-A-Lot.

"Sir Boast-A-Lot was the bravest and cleverest knight at the Round Table, but soon, the other knights began to grow tired of his stories about how brave he was and how many dragons he'd slain. And so they began to wonder: are Sir Boast-A-Lot's stories even true? So, one of the knights went to King Arthur and said, I don't believe Sir Boast-A-Lot's stories. He's just a big old liar who makes things up to make himself look good.

"And then even the king began to wonder. But that wasn't the end of Sir Boast-A-Lot's problem. No. That wasn't the final problem. The end." The monitor flickered and went back to the Home Shopping Network.

"Stop the cab!" said Sherlock. "Stop the cab! What was that!" The cab pulled over and Sherlock got out and bent over to look in the driver's window. "What was that!"

The cabbie turned his head to look at him. It was Moriarty. "No charge," he said, in his mournful, syrupy voice, and drove away.

Sherlock tried to chase him, but it was no good. He stood in the middle of the street catching his breath and staring after the cab's retreating tail lights.

Big hands grabbed him from behind and yanked him toward the curb. Sherlock spun to fight, but in almost the same instant a car, honking and skidding, swept across the tarmac where Sherlock had been standing a moment before. The man who had grabbed him—hefty and bald—let go of Sherlock and stood there, looking at him warily.

"Thank you," said Sherlock, and held out his hand to shake.

The man was reaching out to shake Sherlock's hand when three loud cracks shattered the quiet street, and bloody holes appeared, as if by magic, in the man's chest. The man collapsed to the ground and Sherlock spun in circles, looking for the shooter. At that moment, John's cab pulled up, with John already climbing out and running over. He glanced at Sherlock to make sure he was okay, then knelt over the bleeding man on the pavement. Still catching his breath, Sherlock called Lestrade.

They didn't have much time to talk until the paramedics and the police came and took over the scene.

John was pacing. "It's him. It's him. Sulai-mali or something. Mycroft showed me his files. A big Albanian gangster who lives two doors down from us."

Sherlock had barely moved from his spot on the pavement. "He died because I shook his hand."

"What do you mean?"

"He saved my life but he couldn't touch me. Why?" The question seemed to put him in motion, and he walked away from the scene, towards Baker Street.

"Four assassins living right on our doorstep?" said Sherlock as they climbed the stairs to the flat. John had filled him in on the rest of his conversation with Mycroft on their walk back. "They didn't come here to kill me. They have to keep me alive." He threw his scarf and coat across a chair and sat at his laptop. "I've got something that all of them want. If any one of them approaches me…"

"The others kill him before he can get it."

Sherlock turned on the laptop's wi-fi settings, which showed him five detected networks in the immediate area, none of which were named in English. "All of the attention is focused on me. There's a surveillance web closing in on us right now."

"So what've you got that's so important?" John asked.

Sherlock did not seem to hear. "I need to ask about the dusting," he said, getting up and calling Mrs Hudson.

Mrs Hudson was not happy about being woken up, but she put on her dressing gown and came upstairs.

"Precise details. In the last week, what's been cleaned?" demanded Sherlock.

"Well, Tuesday I did your lino, and—"

"No, in here, this room. This is where we'll find it. Any break in the dust line. You can put back anything but dust. Dust is eloquent."

"He's he on about?" Mrs Hudson asked John in a low voice.

"Cameras," said Sherlock, climbing the bookcase to look on top of it. "We're being watched."

"What? Cameras? Here?" Mrs Hudson pulled her dressing gown together at the neck. "I'm in my nightie!" The doorbell rang, and she went downstairs to answer it. Sherlock was now inspecting the mess on the mantelpiece, before moving on to the other bookcase. One of the volumes in a large two-volume set was out of place. He nudged it aside and there, tucked high in the corner of the case, was a small camera with a wireless transmitter.

He didn't turn round as he heard Lestrade's step on the stairs. "No, Inspector."

"What?" asked Lestrade, coming into the room.

"The answer's no." He pulled out the camera and set it on the desk next to his laptop.

"You haven't heard the question."

"You want to take me to the station. Just saving you the trouble of asking."

"Sherlock—" Lestrade took a deep breath before broaching the subject.

"The screaming?"

"Yeah."

"It was Donovan, I bet it was Donovan. Am I somehow responsible for the kidnapping. Oh, Moriarty, you're smart. He planted that doubt in her head. That little nagging sensation. You're going to have to be strong to resist."

Lestrade shoved his hands in his pockets and tilted his head, watching Sherlock, like he was trying to decide something.

"You can't kill an idea, can you?" asked Sherlock. "Not once it's made a home _there_." He tapped Lestrade lightly on the forehead.

"Will you come?" asked Lestrade. He didn't want to get into this, not right now.

Sherlock sat at his laptop. "One photograph, that's his next move. Moriarty's game. First the scream, then a photograph of me being taken in for questioning. He wants to destroy me inch by inch." He looked up at Lestrade. "It is a game, Lestrade, and not one I'm willing to play. Give my regards to Sgt. Donovan." He turned back to his laptop.

Lestrade gave John a darkly significant look before letting himself out. John watched him go, staring out the window as Lestrade—with Donovan, who must've been waiting on the pavement—got into his car and drove away.

Sherlock glanced at John for a moment, then went back to tracing the camera's signal. "He's deciding."

"Deciding?"

"Whether to come back with a warrant and arrest me."

"You think?"

"Standard procedure."

"Should've gone with him. People will think—"

"I don't care what people think."  
"You'd care if they thought you were stupid or wrong."

"No. That would just make them stupid or wrong."

"Sherlock, I don't want the world believing you're—" John stopped.

Sherlock looked at him, his eyes pale silver in the glow of the laptop. "That I am what?"

"…A fraud."

"You're worried they're right."

"What?"

"You're worried they're right about me."

John shook his head. "No."

"That's why you're so upset. You can't even entertain the possibility that they might be right. You're afraid that you've been taken in as well."

John turned his gaze back out the window. "No, I'm not."

"Moriarty is playing with your mind too. Can't you see what's going on!" Sherlock pounded the table in frustration.

John looked at him as if wondering how someone could be so unfathomably stupid. "No, I know you're for real."

"A hundred percent?"

"Nobody could fake being such an annoying dick all the time."

The Chief Inspector's northern accent had faded from many years in London, but it grew broader when his temper was up. Lestrade sat in front of his desk, feeling rather like he had in primary school whenever he got sent to the headmaster's. The back of his neck was warm with embarrassment. Donovan and Anderson stood behind him. Donovan had just explained the situation, and the warrant they were issuing.

"Sherlock Holmes?" confirmed the Chief Inspector.

"Yes, sir," said Lestrade.

"That bloke that's been in the press. I thought he was some sort of private eye."

"He is."

"We've been consulting with him, that's what you're telling me. Not used him on any proper cases though, have we?"

"Well…one or two," said Lestrade.

"Twenty or thirty," muttered Anderson towards his toes.

The Chief Inspector's mouth went slack. _"What?"_

"Look," said Lestrade quickly, "I'm not the only senior officer who did this. Gregson—"

"Shut up! An amateur detective, given access to all sorts of classified information? And now he's a suspect in a case?"

"With all due respect—"

"You're a bloody idiot, Lestrade! Now go and fetch him in right now!" When Lestrade didn't move immediately, the Chief turned a remarkable shade of purple. _"Do it."_ Without further words, Lestrade, Donovan, and Anderson all filed out.

"I hope you're proud of yourselves," said Lestrade, as they crossed the empty outer offices.

"But what if it's not just this case?" asked Anderson. "What if he's done this to us every single time?"

"So I've still got some friends on the force," said John, hanging up his phone. "It's Lestrade. Says they're all coming over here right now. Queuing up to snap on the handcuffs. Every single officer you ever made feel like a tit. Which is a lot of people." He turned round as Mrs Hudson let herself in.

"Oh, sorry, am I interrupting?" she asked. Sherlock didn't reply. "Some chap delivered a parcel. I forgot. Marked perishable. I had to sign for it." She handed John a heavy, cream-colored envelope, sealed with a circle of red wax with a mockingbird stamp in the middle. "Funny name. German. Like the fairy tales."

Sherlock slowly stood up as John tore open the envelope. Sirens were audible in the distance. John pulled a blackened biscuit shaped like a gingerbread man out of the envelope.

"Burned to a crisp," observed Sherlock.

"What's it mean?" asked John. Sherlock didn't have a chance to answer, because there was a pounding on the door. Mrs Hudson went downstairs to answer it. Blue flashes from spinning patrol car lights came through the window.

Sherlock heard Donovan come through the open door, calling that they needed to talk to him. "Don't barge in like that!" said Mrs Hudson, indignantly, not having got all the way to the door before Donovan opened it.

"Evening, Mrs Hudson," said Lestrade, walking by her.

John stood halfway down the stairs, blocking their way. "Got a warrant, have you?" he asked.

Sherlock slowly put his scarf around his neck and pulled on his coat.

"Leave it, John." Lestrade's voice wafted up the stairs.

"Really! Manners!" Sherlock heard the indignation in Mrs Hudson's voice.

The small room filled up quickly with police officers. A uniformed officer handcuffed Sherlock as Lestrade stood in front of him, looking grim. "Sherlock Holmes, I'm arresting you on suspicion of abduction and kidnapping."

"He's not resisting," protested John to the uniformed officer.

"It's all right, John," said Sherlock.

"No, it's not all right, this is ridiculous."

"Get him downstairs, now," said Lestrade. The officer pulled Sherlock out the door.

"You know you don't have to—" started John.

Lestrade interrupted. "Don't try to interfere or I shall arrest you, too." He gave John a warning look before following Sherlock and the officer down the stairs.

John turned to see Donovan still in the doorway. "You done?" he asked her.

"Well, I said it," said Donovan. "First time we met."

"Don't bother."

"Solving crimes won't be enough. One day he'll cross the line. Now ask yourself: What sort of man would kidnap those kids just so he can impress us all by finding them?"

The Chief Inspector appeared in the doorway. "Donovan?"

"Sir."

"That's our man?"

"Yes sir."

The Chief Inspector looked around at the flat. "A bit of a weirdo if you ask me. Often are, these vigilante types." He turned and saw John watching him. "What're you looking at?"

John had to admit, it was quite satisfying to see the blood burst out of the Chief Inspector's nose.

Sherlock did not look surprised when John was shoved roughly against the car next to him, also handcuffed. "Joining me?"

"Yeah. Apparently it's against the law to chin the Chief Superintendent."

"Bit awkward, this," said Sherlock, as a police officer handcuffed him and John to each other, rather than leaving them separate.

"No one to bail us," agreed John.

"I was thinking more about our imminent and daring escape," said Sherlock. His eyes fell on the squawking radio on the dashboard of the car, just inside the open window. He reached out and pushed the button on the radio that activated the loudspeaker on the car. The radio screamed with feedback and officers grabbed at their heads, pulling out earpieces, including the two officers who were supposed to be guarding him and John. Sherlock spun round, dragging John with him, and pulled the gun off the officer's belt.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" announced Sherlock, backing up and pointing the gun in the general direction of the officers, "Will you all please get on your knees?"

Nobody moved. Lestrade started to walk forward, looking exasperated. Sherlock fired twice into the air. " _Now_ would be good."

"Do as he says!" roared Lestrade. The officers in the vicinity sank to the ground.

"Just so you're aware," called John, "The gun is his idea, I'm just, uh, you know—"

Sherlock switched the gun to his other hand and pointed it at John. "My hostage!"

"Hostage! Yes, that works," said John. They were walking backwards up Baker Street. "So what now?" he asked Sherlock in a low voice.

"Doing what Moriarty wants. Becoming a fugitive. _Run_." They took off up the street.

"Get after him, Lestrade!" roared the Superintendent, his voice thick with his bloody nose. Lestrade stood slowly, angry at the entire situation.

It was hard to run with their wrists chained together, as they kept swinging their arms in different rhythms. "Take my hand," said Sherlock, grabbing John.

"Now people will definitely talk," said John. The gun dropped out of Sherlock's hand and clattered on the pavement. "The gun!"

"Leave it," said Sherlock, not slowing down. He pushed John down an alley filled with garbage cans and putrid water. The end of the alley was blocked by a gate. Without pausing, Sherlock scrambled up and over, pinning John flat against the fence rail. "Sherlock, wait," John said, reaching through the fence with his free hand and grabbing Sherlock by the collar. "We're going to need to coordinate."

"Right. Go to your right," said Sherlock, working his way over to a bin that John could scramble up and over the fence.

Sherlock led them through a warren of alleys, keeping only to paths too narrow for vehicles, and staying in the shadows and out of sight of the streets.

"Everybody wants to believe it, that's what makes it so clever," he said, as they shrank against a wall and waited for police cars to go by. "A lie that's preferable to the truth. I'm not brilliant, the deductions were just a sham, no one feels inadequate—Sherlock Holmes is just an ordinary man." And there was something else, he knew, there had to be. There always was with Moriarty. Keep Sherlock dancing, keep him jumping from crisis to crisis, so he can't get to the heart of the matter.

"What about Mycroft? He can help us."

"Big family reconciliation? Now's not really the moment."

John was looking back the way they had come, and spotted a person-shape lurking in the shadows a block or so down. "Sherlock! We're being followed. I knew we couldn't outrun the police."

"That's not the police. It's one of our new neighbours from Baker Street. Let's see if he can give us some answers." He peeked around the corner at their tail, and then pulled John down the alley in the other direction, out into the street, running full-tilt in front of a red double-decker. John barely had time to panic before their tail barrelled into them from behind, knocking them out of the bus' path. All three fell in a heap to the pavement.

Sherlock recovered first. Sitting up, he stole the gun from the waistband of the spy and pointed it at him. "Tell me what you want from me." The man didn't answer. "Tell me!"

"He left it at your flat."

"Who?"

"Moriarty."

"What?"

"The computer key code." The spy got to his feet, and John and Sherlock scrambled up as well.

"Of course. He's selling it. The program he used to break into the Tower. He planted it when he came around—" At that moment, three rifle shots shattered the night, and this time Sherlock didn't hesitate—he dropped the gun and ran, pulling John along with him.

They ducked into an alley several blocks away and stopped to catch their breath. "It's a game changer," said Sherlock. "It's a key. It can break into any system and it's sitting in our flat right now. _That's_ why he left that message telling everyone where to come—'GET SHERLOCK.' We need to get back into the flat and search."

"CID will be camped out. Why pass it on to you?"

"It's another subtle way of smearing my name. Now I'm best pals with all those criminals."

Sherlock took a breath, his thoughts spinning and then settling. He had to clear his name while evading the police. He had to find the key code and anticipate Moriarty's next move. If the police found the key code first…what was Moriarty's next move? he asked himself.

Once, when he was a boy, driving with his father after dark through the countryside, a deer had gotten caught in the headlights of their car. The headlights froze its brain, and when it bolted, it had tried to move in two directions at once, and the car hit it square on. It had rolled up onto the bonnet of the car, its legs flailing, and hit the ground with a flat crunch. He couldn't go in every direction at once. He had to pick one.

John's gaze fell on a stack of newspapers, all ready and waiting to be delivered in the small hours of the morning. "Yeah, well. Have you seen this? A kiss and tell. Some local, Rich Brook. Who is he?" The headline at the bottom of the page read "Sherlock: The Shocking Truth. Close Friend Richard Brook Tells All." It was written by Kitty Riley, the reporter who had accosted Sherlock in the toilet at Moriarty's trial.

Well, Sherlock thought, it's as good a lead as any. Baker Street would keep—it would have to, since he couldn't get in right now anyway. He pulled John along, down the alleys.

Kitty Riley lived in a row house that had been converted to flats. She parked her car up the block. She was tired, but satisfied, having waited at the office for Saturday's paper to come off the press. Her first cover story, and she knew— _knew_ —it was going to be huge. It was going to set her apart from the other reporters in the newsroom. The competition.

She let herself in the outer door and turned on the hall light, then stopped at the door of her flat, keys in her hand.

The door of her flat was ajar.

Carefully, she pushed the door open and snapped on the light.

Sherlock Holmes and his—his boyfriend or whatever he was, the blogger—were sitting on her divan. They were handcuffed together.

"Too late to go on the record?" Sherlock asked her.

She found that, for the first time in living memory, she could think of nothing to say. Mutely, she followed Sherlock's command to get her a bobby pin. Her thoughts started to re-gather as he picked the handcuff lock on his wrist and freed himself.

"Congratulations," he told her, handing the bobby pin to John. "The truth about Sherlock Holmes. The scoop that everybody wanted and you got it. Bravo."

"I gave you your opportunity. I wanted to be on your side, remember? You turned me down."

"And then lo and behold, someone turns up and spills all the beans. How utterly convenient. Who is Brook?"

She shook her head.

"Oh, come on, Kitty. No one trusts the voice at the end of the telephone. There are all those furtive little meetings in cafes, those sessions in the hotel room when he gabbled into your Dicta-phone. How do you know that you can trust him? Man turns up with the Holy Grail in his pockets? What were his credentials?"

She looked like she was about to answer, but at that moment the front door opened and they all turned around.

It was Moriarty, carrying a sack of groceries. "Darlin, they didn't have any ground coffee so I just got—" He stopped, seeing Sherlock.

They both stared at each other, shock plain on both faces.

Moriarty backed away. "You said that they wouldn't find me here," he said to Kitty. "You said that I'd be safe here."

Kitty tried to reassure him. "You are safe, Richard, I'm a witness. They won't harm you in front of witnesses."

John didn't think she should be so sure of that. "So _that's_ your source? Moriarty is Richard Brook?"

"Of course he's Richard Brook. There is no Moriarty. There never has been."

"What're you talking about?"

"Look him up. Rich Brook. An actor Sherlock Holmes _hired_ to be Moriarty."

"Dr Watson," stammered Moriarty, hands held defensively in front of him, "I know you're a good man, don't—don't—don't hurt me."

"No!" shouted John. "You're Moriarty! He's Moriarty. We've _met_ , remember, you were going to blow me up."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. He paid me. I needed the work. I'm an actor, I was out of work, I'm sorry—"

"Sherlock," said John, his voice furiously calm, "You'd better explain, because I am not getting this."

Sherlock did not move, or speak, or take his eyes off Moriarty. He saw it now. He saw the noose around his own neck.

"I'll be doing the explaining," said Kitty Riley, digging file folders out of her bag. "In print. It's all here. Conclusive proof. You invented James Moriarty," she said to Sherlock. "Your 'nemesis.'"

"Invented him?" said John, paging through a copy of Kitty's article and pages of Rich Brook's acting resume.

"Mmhmm. Invented all the crimes, actually. And to cap it all, you made up a master villain."

"Don't be ridiculous," said John.

"Ask him, he's right here, just ask him," insisted Kitty, pointing at Moriarty. "Tell him, Richard."

"Look, for God's sakes, this man was _on trial!"_ said John.

"Yes, and _you_ paid him," said Kitty to Sherlock. "Paid him to take the rap. Promised you'd rig the jury. Not exactly a West End role, but I bet the money was good. But not so good he didn't want to sell his story."

"I am sorry," begged Moriarty, still looking at John. "I am, I am sorry."

"So this is the story that you're going to publish," said John. "The big conclusion of it all—Moriarty's an actor?"

"He knows I am! I have proof. I've proof, show him, Kitty, show him something."

"Yeah, show me something," said John.

"I'm on TV, I'm on kids TV," babbled Moriarty. "I'm the storyteller." Kitty handed John a file folder. In it were professional reviews of Moriarty's roles on TV. "I'm the storyteller. It's on DVD." His résumé. Theatre roles he'd had. "Just tell him," said Moriarty to Sherlock. "It's all coming out now. It's all over. Just tell them. Just tell them. Tell him! It's all over— _No!"_ He retreated backwards as Sherlock advanced on him. "Don't you touch me! Don't you lay a finger on me!" He cowered on the stairs.

"Stop it," said Sherlock, speaking for the first time since Moriarty entered the apartment. "Stop it now!"

"Don't hurt me!" cried Moriarty, bolting up the stairs. John and Sherlock chased after him, but he retreated into the bathroom and locked the door. Kitty was shouting at them to leave him alone.

Sherlock kicked open the bathroom door, but Moriarty had already gone out the window. "No," said Sherlock to John's unspoken suggestion, "He'll have backup." He turned and made for the front door.

"Do you know what, Sherlock Holmes? I look at you now and I can read you. And you. Repel. Me," said Kitty, blocking his path down the stairs. Sherlock and John pushed past her and went out the door.

"Can he do that?" asked John, back out on the street. "Completely change his identity, make you the criminal?"

"He's got my whole life story. That's what you do when you sell a big lie. Wrap it up in a truth to make it more palatable." He paced in the middle of the street.

"It'll be your word against his," said John, looking down at Rich Brook's press clippings that he still had in his fist.

"He's been sowing doubt into people's minds for the last twenty-four hours. There's only one thing he needs to do to complete his game and that's—" Sherlock stopped.

Only one thing he needs to do.

The computer code was a waste of time. It was a McGuffin. It didn't matter if it was real or not, for Moriarty, the computer code wasn't the game. Just like all those months ago, the memory stick with the Bruce Partington Plans had ultimately meant nothing. The criminals that Moriarty associated with thought it was real, so he couldn't ignore it, but the computer code wasn't important, not to Moriarty.

 _I O U,_ he'd said. I owe you a fall. A fall, but Moriarty didn't just want to kill Sherlock Holmes. He'd said as much the first night they met. He wanted to ruin him. Burn the heart out of him.

A voice came into the back of his head. From the past? No. From yesterday. From a few hours ago. Felt like farther back than yesterday.

 _I don't want people thinking you're a fraud._

 _Moriarty is playing with your mind too. Can't you see what's going on?_

 _No. I know you're for real._

 _One hundred per cent?_

 _No one could fake being such an annoying dick all the time._

Sherlock felt the spider's web closing around him. The threads that had fallen into place without him realizing their significance until it was too late. No single thread could capture him, but all together?

Moriarty wasn't trying to ruin him professionally. Though that was part of it.

Not even trying to kill him, though that was certainly part of it too. That would complete the story. He had courted death before. Moriarty knew it. Sherlock had reconciled himself to the risks long ago.

What was left?

Nobody—except perhaps John—had agreed to play the game. Had thought about the cost. Or the danger. Everyone else was vulnerable, even Lestrade. Everyone has their pressure point.

Sherlock saw the future, spiralling out in front of him with no exits save one. He had been too slow on the uptake, and now there was no time, no time to head off Moriarty's hounds. No time to escape the net.

But maybe enough time to save them.

If there was no Sherlock to ruin…

"Sherlock?" asked John.

If there was no Sherlock to ruin, his friends would be out of the game.

Sherlock stood still. "There's something I need to do."

"What? Can I help?"

John would never be able to do what needed to be done.

"No. On my own." Without another word, he left John standing in the middle of the street.

Molly was doing one more pass through the lab on her way out, making sure the machines were off and everything was tidy, when Sherlock spoke to her from out of the shadows, startling the breath out of her. "You were wrong, you know," he said. "You do count. You've always counted, and I've always trusted you. But you were right." He paused for a moment and looked at her. "I'm not okay."

"Tell me what's wrong," she said.

"Molly…I think I'm going to die."

She did not contradict him. Did not fall to pieces. Just her eyebrows drew together. "What do you need?"

"If I wasn't everything that you think I am, everything that I think I am," he asked her, "Would you still want to help me?"

She looked steadily at him. "What do you need?" she asked again.

"You."

Not knowing where else to go, John went to the Diogenes Club and found Mycroft, who wordlessly led him into the room where they were allowed to talk. "She," said John, holding up the proofs of Kitty Riley's article, "has really done her homework. Miss Riley. There's things that only someone close to Sherlock could know." He turned at looked at Mycroft.

"Ahh," said Mycroft, shutting the heavy oaken doors.

"Have you seen your brother's address book lately?" asked John. "Two names. Yours and mine. And Moriarty didn't get this stuff from me."

"John—"

"So how does it work, then? Your relationship. You go out for coffee now and then, hey? You and Jim? Your own brother and you—you _blabbed_ about his entire life to this maniac."

Mycroft sat slowly in a chair opposite John. "I never intend—I never dreamt—"

"This—see, this—" John said, holding out Riley's article, "Is what you were trying to tell me, isn't it? 'Watch his back because I've made a mistake.'"

Mycroft said nothing.

"How'd you meet him?" John asked.

"People like him, we…know about them. We watch them. But James Moriarty…the most dangerous criminal mind the world has ever seen. And in his pocket, the ultimate weapon. The key code. A few lines of computer code that can unlock any door."

"And you abducted him to try and find the key code."

"Interrogated him for weeks."

"And?"

"He wouldn't play along. He just sat there. Staring into the darkness. The only thing that made him open up…I could get him to talk. Just a little. But…"

"In return, you had to offer him Sherlock's life story. So it's one big lie—Sherlock's a fraud—but people will swallow it because the rest of it's true." He leaned forward and put his knees on his elbows. "Moriarty wanted Sherlock destroyed. And _you_ have given him the perfect ammunition."

Mycroft looked down at his lap. It was, John supposed, the nearest he would ever get to admitting shame. He stood up to go.

"John—" said Mycroft. "I'm sorry. Tell him, would you?"

John had to laugh at that as he let himself out.

Sherlock was sitting on the floor of the lab, bouncing a squash ball off the cupboards, when John arrived. "Got your message."

"The computer code is key to this," Sherlock told him. "If we find it, we can use it. Beat Moriarty at his own game."

"What do you mean, use it?"

"He used it to create a false identity. So we can use it to break into the records and destroy Richard Brook."

"Bring back Jim Moriarty again."

"It's somewhere in 221B. Somewhere, on the day of the verdict, he left it hidden." Sherlock stood and leaned on the lab table, turning the squash ball in his hands.

"What did he touch?" asked John.

"Apple. Nothing else."

"He write anything down?"

"No."

John idly tapped his fingers on the table, thinking. Sherlock watched them, strolling around in his memory palace. He turned slowly so his back was to John and pulled out his phone.

Come and play. Bart's Hospital rooftop. SH.

PS. God something of yours you might want back.

He went back to waiting.

Outside, the sun slowly rose, indigo sky turning yellow at the horizon, then lightening to pale, steely blue, like a curtain rising.

John had fallen asleep on a lab stool when he was awakened by his phone ringing. "Yes? Speaking…What?" He stood up and turned to grab his jacket. Sherlock, sitting with his feet on the table, didn't move, but his eyes followed John. "What happened, is she okay? Oh, my god. Right. Yes, I'm coming." He hung up.

"What is it?" asked Sherlock.

"Paramedics. Mrs Hudson. She's been shot."

Sherlock's expression did not flicker. "What? How?"

"Probably one of the killers you managed to attract. Jesus. _Jesus_. She's dying, Sherlock, let's go."

"You go, I'm busy."

John rounded furiously on Sherlock. "Busy?"

"Thinking. I need to think."

"You need to—Doesn't she mean anything to you? You once half-killed a man because he laid a finger on her."

Sherlock shrugged. "She's my landlady."

"She's _dying_ , you—you machine. Stop this. Stop this. You stay here if you want. On your own."

"Alone is what I have. Alone protects me."

"No. Friends protect people," said John as he went out the door.

He had barely gone when Sherlock's phone beeped with a text.

I'm waiting…

JM

Sherlock took a deep breath. One more game.

"Well," said Moriarty when Sherlock came out of the service door and onto the roof of St Bart's. He was sitting on the lip at the edge of the roof, playing the Bee Gees on his phone. "Here we are at last. You and me, Sherlock." He was dressed as Moriarty, not Richard Brook, in a Westwood suit with a Nehru collar. "And our problem. The final problem. Staying alive!" He lifted the phone and winced at it, turning the music off. "So boring, isn't it? It's just… _staying_." He moved his head in a flat, forward motion, continuous and unchanging and boring, then buried his head in his hands. Sherlock slowly circled the roof, not saying anything. "All my life I've been searching for distractions. You were the best distraction and now I don't even have you. Because I've beaten you." Sherlock turned his head sharply at this, but said nothing. "And you know what? In the end, it was easy. It was easy. Now I've got to go back to playing with the _ordinary_ people. And it turns out you're ordinary, just like all of them. Oh well." He stood up and strolled towards Sherlock. "Did you almost start to wonder if I was real? Did I nearly get you?"

"Richard Brook."

"Nobody seems to get the joke. But you do."

"Of course."

"Attaboy."

"Richard Brook in German is Reichenbach. The case that made my name." Sherlock was standing still now, letting Moriarty pace in a slow circle around him.

"Just trying to have some fun." He looked down at Sherlock's hands, clasped behind his back. Sherlock was tapping the fingers of his right hand against his left wrist. "Good. You got that too."

"Beats like digits. Every beat is a one, every rest is a zero. Binary code. That's why all those assassins tried to save my life. It was hidden on me, hidden inside my head. A few simple lines of computer code that can break into any system."

Moriarty was watching him now. "Told all my clients. Last one to Sherlock is a sissy."

"Yes, but now that it's up here, I can use it to alter all the records. I can kill Rich Brook and bring back Jim Moriarty."

Moriarty's face fell with disappointment. "No, no, no no no no. It's too easy. It's too easy. There _is no key, DOOFUS!_ " The last word came out loud and furious. "Those digits are meaningless. They're utterly meaningless. Is that what you think? A couple of lines of computer code are going to crash the world around our ears? I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed in you, _ordinary_ Sherlock." He slumped his shoulders and shuffled forward, mimicking the shambling gait of an ape.

"But the rhythm?"

"Partita Number One! Thank you, Johann Sebastian Bach."

"Then how did you—"

"Then how did I break into the bank, to the Tower, to the prison? Daylight robbery! All it takes is some willing participants. I knew you'd fall for it. That's your weakness. You always want everything to be clever. Now, shall we finish the game? One final act. Glad you chose a tall building. Nice way to do it."

"Do it—do, do what?" Sherlock turned slowly, acting slow on the uptake. "Yes, of course. My suicide."

"Genius detective proved to be a fraud. I read it in the paper, so it must be true. I love newspapers. Fairy tales. And pretty grim ones, too."

John threw money at the cab driver and bolted into Baker Street, then stopped short. Mrs Hudson was standing at the foot of the stairs, watching the burly repairman he'd seen on the day of the kidnapping, who was standing on a ladder with a drill.

"Oh, John. You made me jump," she said, smiling at him.

"But—"

"Is everything okay now, with the police? Has Sherlock sorted it all out?"

Sherlock. Everything clunked into place in John's head, and he realized what an utter idiot he'd been. Of course. Sherlock had been trying to get rid of him. The call itself had probably come from one of his bloody Homeless Network. "Oh my god," he breathed, and bolted back out onto the street to get a taxi back to Bart's.

"I can still prove that you created an entirely false identity," Sherlock said to Moriarty.

"Oh, just kill yourself, it's a lot less effort. Go on. For me." Moriarty's voice rose to a shrill whine. "Pleeeeeeeeeeeeaaase?"

Sherlock grabbed Moriarty by the collar and pushed him to the edge of the roof, before mastering himself and stopping, Moriarty's arms pinwheeling for balance. "You're insane," Sherlock breathed.

"You're just getting that now?" asked Moriarty. He was holding the sleeves of Sherlock's coat to keep from toppling off the roof. "Okay. Let me give you a little extra incentive." His eyes hardened. "Your friends will die if you don't."

"John?"

"Not just John. Everyone."

"Mrs Hudson?"

 _"Everyone."_

"Lestrade?"

"Three bullets. Three gunmen. Three victims. There's no stopping them now. Unless my people see you jump."

Sherlock pulled Moriarty back from the edge.

Moriarty straightened his collar. "You can have me arrested. You can torture me. You can do anything you like with me. But nothing's going to prevent them from pulling the trigger. Your only friends in the world will die. Unless—"

"Unless I kill myself. Complete your story."

"You've got to admit that's sexier."

"And I die in disgrace."

"Of course. That's the point of this." Moriarty looked down at the pavement, seven floors. Small knots of people were walking on the pavement, waiting at a bus stop. "You've got an audience now. Off you pop. Go on." Slowly, Sherlock stepped onto the edge. His coat caught the wind and flapped against the backs of his legs. "I told you how this ends. Your death is the only thing that's going to call off the killers. I'm certainly not going to do it."

"Will you give me one moment?" asked Sherlock. His voice was shaking. "Please. One moment of privacy. Please."

"Of course," said Moriarty, and moved away several feet.

Sherlock stood there, looking out over the London rooftops. Down at the street, looking at the people. Catching his breath. And thinking. Always thinking.

Then he started laughing.

Moriarty turned. "What? What is it?"

Sherlock just kept laughing.

"What did I miss?"

Sherlock jumped lightly down from the ledge. "You're not going to do it. So the killers can be called off, then. There's a recall code or a word or a number. I don't have to die if I've got you."

"Oh. You think you can make me stop the order? You think you can make me do that?"

"Yes. So do you."

"Sherlock, your big brother and all the king's horses couldn't make me do a thing I didn't want to."

"Yes, but I'm not my brother, remember? I am you. Prepared to do anything. Prepared to burn. Prepared to do what ordinary people won't do." Sherlock stepped closer to Moriarty, his voice quiet. "You want me to shake hands with you in hell? I shall not disappoint you."

Moriarty considered, then shook his head. "No. You talk big, but no. You're ordinary. You're ordinary, you're on the side of the angels."

"Oh, I may be on the side of the angels," said Sherlock. "But don't think for one second that I am one of them."

They stared at each other for a long moment.

Moriarty blinked first. "No. You're not." He closed his eyes in relief, then smiled a smile that did not touch his eyes. "I see. You're not ordinary. No. You're me," he purred. "You're me?" His voice rose, like a child who has received a present. Sherlock didn't move, his whole body tense, waiting for Moriarty to make a move. "Thank you, Sherlock Holmes." He held out his hand for Sherlock to take, and after a barely perceptible hesitation, Sherlock took it, every neuron in his body looking for the trap that was about to go off.

"Thank you," Moriarty said again. "Bless you. As long as I'm alive, you can save your friends. You've got a way out. Well…good luck with that." His face broke into a mad rictus grin and his left hand came out of his jacket. With one smooth movement, he put the gun in his mouth and fired.

Sherlock yanked his hand out of Moriarty's and staggered back, staring at the blood coming out of the back of Moriarty's shattered skull, the mad smile still on his face, mocking him. He turned away from the dead man, trying to force his thoughts to gather, but they'd scattered with the gunshot. There had to be a way out, there had to be, but even if he figured out the password, without Moriarty, he had no way to disseminate it to the assassins. If there were assassins. But he had to proceed as if there were. It was the sort of thing Moriarty would do. The sort of game he loved to play, the sort of dance he loved to make Sherlock dance. Moriarty bluffed about everything except death threats.

Moriarty, _Jesus_ , those were his brains all over the rooftop and—bile rose in Sherlock's throat. He pressed his arm against his mouth and willed it back down.

No. There was no way out. There was no other plan that would work.

He didn't want to. He'd planned to, but he didn't want to. _Admit it to yourself, Sherlock, even if it makes you weak_ , he thought. _Nobody up here but us to ever know it._

He stepped up onto the ledge, and saw a taxi pull up behind the ambulance bay. John climbed out and started to jog towards the hospital. Sherlock pulled out his mobile and called him.

"Hello?" said John.

"John."

"Hey, Sherlock, you okay?"

Sherlock did not answer this. "Turn around and walk back the way you came."

"No, I'm coming in."

"Just do as I ask! Please."

John stopped. He'd heard the tension in Sherlock's voice at last. "Where?" he said, turning around and walking away from the hospital.

"Stop there."

John stopped. "Sherlock—"

"Okay, look up, I'm on the rooftop."

John looked up and saw him, silhouetted against the sky. "Oh, God."

"I—I can't come down, so we'll just have to do it like this," said Sherlock, looking down at his friend.

"What's going on?" asked John.

"An apology. It's…all true."

"What?"

"Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty." He turned and looked at the corpse staring blankly at the sky.

John backed up a few steps. "Why are you saying this?"

"I'm a fake."

"Sherlock—"

"The newspapers were right all along." He was starting to lose it. Just jumping would have been easy, so easy, but he had to do this. John had to believe this or it would never work. "I want you to tell Lestrade. I want you to tell Mrs Hudson and Molly. In fact, tell anyone who will listen to you that I created Moriarty for my own purposes."

"Shut up, Sherlock. Shut up. The first time we met, the _first time_ we met, you knew all about my sister, right?"

"Nobody could be that clever."

"You could." John did not understand why Sherlock was doing this, but he would not play along.

Sherlock realized all at once that his face was wet. He must be crying. Silence hung between them for a long moment before he could speak. "I researched you. Before we met I discovered everything that I could to impress you. It's a trick. It's just a magic trick."

"No, all right? Stop it, now." John started towards the hospital.

"No! Stay exactly where you are!" Sherlock raised his hand as if to push John back. "Don't move."

John backed up. "All right."

"Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me?"

"Do what?"

"This phone call. It's…it's my note. It's what people do, don't they? Leave a note."

John had to take the phone away from his ear for a moment. He did not want to hear this. He did not. "Leave a note when?"

"Goodbye, John."

"No. Don't—" He stared up at his friend and saw Sherlock drop his mobile on the roof behind him. His heart turned to lead.

"SHERLOCK!" shouted John, wanting to say _Don't be an idiot_ , wanting to say _We can fix this_ , wanting to say—

Then Sherlock's arms opened wide, and he pitched forward. His arms and legs pinwheeled as if he was trying to swim through the air.

But he was falling.

John stood frozen. He didn't see Sherlock hit the ground—the ambulance bay blocked his view—but he heard it. The sound of everything breaking.

He ran forward, and had just rounded the corner when a cyclist slammed into him from behind, hitting his bad shoulder and sending him sprawling to the pavement.

John stood slowly, horrified and disoriented, his whole arm feeling full of splinters. He couldn't see Sherlock, but there was a crowd of people on the sidewalk so he made for that. A pressure seemed to be building around his ears. He was a doctor, an army doctor who'd seen combat, he went towards injuries. "I'm a doctor, let me come through. Let me come through, please. No, he's my friend," he said to the people holding him back. "He's my friend, out of my way please." He fought his way through, almost, but all pretence of doctoring fell away when he saw Sherlock—the blood sprayed on the pavement and clotting in his hair. John's knees gave way, and he grabbed Sherlock's wrist, searching for a pulse. He couldn't find one. Strong arms pulled him back and he found he couldn't support his own weight. "Please, tell me if it's—Sherlock—" And they rolled the body over, and the blood ran down past blank, blue eyes, mixing with tears and dripping on the pavement. John could see where Sherlock's head had hit the ground, and his vision started to grey out. "Jesus, no. God…no."

Four orderlies lifted Sherlock's limp, broken body onto a gurney and wheeled it into the hospital.

John could not have followed, even if the people on the sidewalk hadn't been restraining him. He couldn't find his breath. There was no air anywhere.

After a moment, though, he hauled himself up, and shook off the concerned bystanders.

 **Afterwards**

"The stuff that you wanted to say, but didn't," said Dr Thompson. "Say it."

"Yeah?"

"Say it now."  
"No. Sorry. I can't." _I wouldn't have to say it if he was here_ , John wanted to tell her. _He'd look at me and he'd know._

Mycroft arranged for Sherlock to be buried in a graveyard near the ancestral stomping grounds of the Holmes clan in Yorkshire. John and Mrs Hudson took the train up, then were driven by one of Mycroft's many minions to the cemetary. John did not feel like talking, and Mrs Hudson held her peace for most of the journey, but at the graveside, looking at Sherlock's name carved in stone, she started to talk, almost in spite of herself.

"There's all the stuff. All the science equipment. I left it all in boxes. I don't know what needs doing. I thought I'd take it to a school. Would you-?"

"I can't go back to the flat again. Not at the moment." _Not ever._ "I'm angry."

"That's okay, John. There's nothing unusual in that, that's the way he made everyone feel. All the marks on my table and the noise. Firing guns off at one in the morning."

"Yeah."

"Bloody specimens in my fridge. Imagine! Keeping bodies where there's food."

"Yes."

"And the _fighting_. Drove me up the wall with all his carryings on." She was crying now.

"Yeah, listen, I'm not actually that angry. Okay?"

"Okay. I'll leave you alone to, um, you know." She turned and walked away, careful in her high heels on the uneven grass, searching in her purse for a tissue.

John waited until she was out of earshot before speaking. "Um…You. You told me once," he cleared his throat and spoke more quickly. "That you weren't a hero. Um. There was times I didn't even think you were human. But let me tell you this. You were the best man, and the most human human being that I have ever known and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie. And so. There." He finished. Drew in a breath. There. Everything Ella Thompson wanted him to say. He stepped forward and touched the headstone, as if it was a shoulder. "I was so alone. And I owe you so much." He started to walk away, then stopped. _Admit it, even if it makes you weak_ , he said to himself _. Say it._ "Please, there's just one more thing. One more thing, one more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don't. Be. Dead." Even now, even only talking to his friend, he could barely say the word. "Would you—just for me, just stop it. Stop this." He took a great, shuddering breath, and suddenly his eyes were leaking. He bowed his head and pressed the heel of his hand against his eyeballs to push everything back in.

And he lifted his head and straightened his shoulders, looking carefully beyond the headstone. Very deliberately, he about-faced, and, after making sure his face was clear and the tension stored away somewhere, he followed Mrs Hudson back the way he had come.

He didn't look left or right.

He didn't see the figure standing in the shadow of the willow tree some distance away.

 **Canonical References**

The title is a reference to Reichenbach Falls, the waterfall that Moriarty and Holmes fell into in their final battle. The waterfall does actually exist in Switzerland. There's a guardrail on the ledge now, and a plaque in Holmes' memory.

In this, the second of the Sherlock adventures to involve Moriarty, we get to see more of Moriarty's activities and abilities than ever show up in the Canon. We only hear about his criminal organization second-hand and in generalities, through Holmes. Holmes tells Watson, "if a detailed account of that silent contest [between himself and Moriarty] could be written, it would take its place as the most brilliant bit of thrust-and-parry work in the history of detection." Doyle never wrote it, though, so Moffat had to.

Both Moriartys—in the Canon and in the show—are basically foils for Holmes, though they contrast different aspects of his personality. Canon Moriarty is, in intelligence and temperament, similar to Holmes—detached and intellectual. In the Canon, it is remarked that society is fortunate that Holmes went into crime prevention, rather than crime; we may assume that Moriarty is this alternate-universe Holmes who took to crime rather than justice. _Sherlock_ -Moriarty, though, is bedlam where Sherlock is self-possession. He is chaos where Sherlock is order. He is Sherlock, not as turned to a life of crime, but if Sherlock gave in to all of his inner demons at once.

"… _everyone—including Sherlock—insisted on describing Sherlock's role as 'assisting in the investigation.'"_ Holmes works for the problems, not for credit or for money, and one of the ways that he convinces the police to work with him on cases is by letting them take credit for his work. As Holmes says in "The Naval Treaty," "Out of my last fifty-three cases my name has appeared only in four, and the police have had all the credit in forty-nine."

" _Tie clip. I don't wear ties."_ Holmes receives an emerald tie pin from "a certain gracious lady," who is strongly implied to be Queen Victoria, at the ending of "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans."

" _You're this far from famous."_ Holmes' ambivalence about his fame is mostly hinted at; In "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder," (which takes place soon after Holmes' return from the dead) Watson tells us that, "His cold and proud nature was always averse, however, from anything in the shape of public applause, and he bound me in the most stringent terms to say no further word of himself, his methods, or his successes—a prohibition which, as I have explained, has only now been removed." Watson also says something similar in "The Adventure of the Empty House." Holmes went to Reichenbach Falls in 1891 and was presumed dead (within the world of the story) until 1894 when he returned to London; his survival was not revealed to the world until the 1903 when "The Empty House" was published. However, Watson also tells us in "The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist" that "from the years 1894 to 1901 inclusive, Mr Sherlock Holmes was a very busy man. It is safe to say that there was no public case of any difficult in which he was not consulted during those eight years, and there were hundreds of private cases, some of them of the most intricate and extraordinary character, in which he played a prominent part." I always interpreted this to mean that while Holmes had officially returned to Baker Street, and was glad to be working, but didn't want to deal with the additional publicity and notoriety that Watson's stories brought. A fair lot of people knew he was alive (witness the "hundreds of private cases" that he's involved in) before Holmes' dictum against Watson's writing about the truth behind his "death" was lifted in 1903, but they all basically collectively declined to acknowledge his existence publicly—and so allowed him to retain a private life.

" _Henry Fishgard never committed suicide. Bow Street Runners—missed everything."_ The Bow Street Runners were the precursors to Scotland Yard, London's first proto-police force. They were founded in 1742 by Henry Fielding, and disbanded in 1839 (Scotland Yard was founded in 1829). Henry Fishgard does not appear to be a real person whose death was investigated, however, the facts of the case as we know them (man who was hanged but did not commit suicide) bear some resemblance to Holmes' case "The Resident Patient."

 _Immediately after Moriarty's arrest at the Tower of London_ , there's a series of pictures of British newspapers' headlines covering the heist. One of them reads "Crime of the Century." In "The Final Problem," Holmes tells Watson that the arrest of Moriarty and his henchmen will lead to "the greatest criminal trial of the century, [and] the clearing up of over forty mysteries." In the Canon, however, the arrest never happens.

" _There's marks on your forearm. Edge of a desk. You've been typing in a hurry, probably."_ In "A Case of Identity," Holmes observes that "The double line a little above the wrist, where the typewritist presses against the table, was beautifully defined."

" _You and John Watson. Just platonic? Can I put you down for a 'no' there as well?"_ Another reference to fandom's preoccupation with the exact nature of Holmes and Watson's relationship.

" _A consulting criminal?"_ The phrase "consulting criminal" is never used in the Canon, but it is basically how Holmes describes Moriarty: "If there is a crime to be done, a paper to be abstracted, we will say, a house to be rifled, a man to be removed—the word is passed to the professor, the matter is organized and carried out."

" _James Moriarty isn't a man at all. He's a spider. A spider at the centre of a web."_ As Holmes says in "The Final Problem," "He sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them."

" _We met twice, five minutes in total. I pulled a gun, he tried to blow me up. I felt we had a special something."_ In the Canon, Holmes and Moriarty only ever meet twice. Once, when Moriarty visits Holmes at 221B Baker Street to try and drive him off his investigation into Moriarty's doings, and the second time, at Reichenbach Falls.

" _Most people knock. But then, you're not most people, I suppose."_ Moriarty doesn't knock in "The Final Problem," either; he just lets himself in at Baker Street (Holmes is surprised to see him). Though much of the dialogue from Moriarty's visit to 221B Baker Street found its way into the penultimate scene of "The Great Game," the actual visit to 221B itself is from "The Final Problem."

" _Oh, that's the problem. The final problem."_ "The Final Problem" is, of course, the story in which Holmes and Moriarty collide. "Final" because it was meant to be the last Sherlock Holmes story. "Final" because Holmes felt that he could happily end his career and retire if only he could remove the stain of Moriarty from the face of London. "Final," I think, has more meaning for Moriarty here than for Sherlock: he's fully expecting to be able to kill Sherlock, and doesn't particularly care if he survives himself. It's unclear what, if anything, would successfully keep Moriarty occupied after successfully killing Sherlock (and, presumably, Mycroft).

" _It's going to start very soon, Sherlock. The fall."_ As Holmes says, "Professor Moriarty is not a man who lets the grass grow under his feet."

" _Sherlock not only refused to leave London, but practically refused to leave the flat."_ As Holmes tells Watson in "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax," when asking Watson to investigate the disappearance of a British lady in France, "You know that I cannot possibly leave London while old Abrahams is in such mortal terror of his life. Besides, on general principles it is best that I should not leave the country. Scotland Yard feels lonely without me, and it causes an unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes."

" _So total silence is traditional? You can't even say pass the sugar?"_ Conan Doyle introduces the Diogenes Club (and Mycroft Holmes himself) in "The Greek Interpreter," which is, as Holmes describes it, "The queerest club in London…There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubable men in town. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the Stranger's Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, allowed." The Diogenes Club is within walking distance of Mycroft's rooms in Pall Mall and his office in Whitehall.

" _Not him, his children. Max and Claudette, age seven and nine. They're at St Aldate's."_ Holmes also investigates the disappearance of a child from an expensive private school in "The Adventure of the Priory School." In that story, though, the evidence points to the child leaving school voluntarily and then meeting with trouble; the kidnapper didn't enter the school.

" _You're right, Anderson. Nothing. Except his shoe size, his height, his gait, his walking pace."_ In _A Study in Scarlet_ , Holmes is able to estimate the height of the murderer (along with numerous other attributes) by examining the tracks in the pathway leading to the house. "Why, the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be told from the length of his stride. It is a simple enough calculation, though there is no use my boring you with figures. I had this fellow's stride both on the clay outside and on the dust within. Then I had a way of checking my calculation. When a man writes on a wall, his instinct leads him to write about the level of his own eyes. Now that writing was just over six feet from the ground." Measuring people's height based on their stride length and foot size is a totally legitimate forensic technique, if you were wondering, though as Holmes said, I don't have the figures.

" _Maybe don't do the smiling. Kidnapped children?"_ Holmes laughs inappropriately in the Canon, though there Watson doesn't have a problem with it, because it's a sign of Holmes' impending success: "I have heard him laugh often," he says in _The Hound of the Baskervilles_ , "and it has always boded ill to somebody."

" _And then he stole the Crown Jewels, broke into the Bank of England, and organized a prison break at Pentonville."_ Moriarty never does these specific things in the Canon (at least, not as far as Conan Doyle ever said), but Holmes does chase after a missing Crown jewel in "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone."

" _Admiration crept into his voice. 'Neat.'"_ Holmes often can't suppress his admiration for a well-planned criminal scene, as in "The Final Problem," when he admits that "My horror at [Moriarty's] crimes was lost in my admiration at his skill."

" _The cabbie turned his head to look at him. It was Moriarty."_ Just a note here to point out that Sherlock still hasn't learned to pay attention to cabbies.

" _Sherlock felt a weight settle around his shoulders. The workings of a net, beginning to wrap itself around him."_ Holmes speaks of catching Moriarty in his net in "The Final Problem:" "I have woven my net round him until now it is all ready to close."

" _I'm not the only senior officer who did this. Gregson—"_ Tobias Gregson is another Scotland Yard Detective mentioned in the Canon.

" _Sherlock led them through a warren of alleys, keeping only to paths too narrow for vehicles, and staying in the shadows and out of sight of the streets."_ As Watson says in "The Adventure of the Empty House," "Holmes's knowledge of the byways of London was extraordinary, and on this occasion he passed rapidly, and with an assured step, through a network of mews and stables the very existence of which I had never known."

" _Of course he's Richard Brook. There is no Moriarty. There never has been."_ Canon Moriarty never has an alias (that we know of), but his "day job," so to speak, his cover for his criminal income, is as a maths professor at an unnamed university. For a long time, it is only Holmes who suspects that anything sinister lurks behind the Professor's façade.

" _Nobody—except perhaps John—had agreed to play the game."_ In "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone," Holmes conveys the trust that he puts in Watson by telling him that "You have never failed to play the game."

" _John would never be able to do what needed to be done."_ A reference to the fact that Holmes' stated reason for never telling Watson that he lived through the confrontation at Reichenbach Falls is because he knew Watson would never be able to keep the secret.

" _But James Moriarty…the most dangerous criminal mind the world has ever seen."_ "He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order." ("The Final Problem")

" _She's dying, you—you machine. Stop this. Stop this. You stay here if you want. On your own."_ Watson also characterizes Holmes as "a machine rather than a man" in "The Crooked Man," though he is referring more to Holmes' impassivity than a belief that Holmes is actually without human feelings. It's also worth noting that comparing Sherlock to a machine is one of the worst things that John could call him (at least, it is to John). He also describes Holmes as "a brain without a heart" in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter" and an automaton in _The Sign of Four_. Additionally, Watson is drawn away from Holmes by a nonexistent patient (after which Holmes is confronted, and seemingly murdered, by Moriarty) in "The Final Problem."

" _That's your weakness. You always want everything to be clever."_ Holmes does occasionally find malice where none ends up existing, as in "The Yellow Face," when he assumes that a woman concealing a lover from her husband turns out to actually be concealing a child. "If it should ever strike you that I am getting a little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case than it deserves, kindly whisper 'Norbury' in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you," he says to Watson when he figures out his error.

" _You want me to shake hands with you in hell? I shall not disappoint you."_ As Holmes says to Moriarty in "The Final Problem," "If I were assured of the former eventuality [Moriarty's destruction] I would, in the interests of the public, cheerfully accept the latter [his own destruction]."

" _This phone call. It's…it's my note. It's what people do, don't they? Leave a note."_ In "The Final Problem," Holmes does leave a note for Watson to find on the path next to the waterfall, explaining why he let Watson go back down the mountain even though he knew Moriarty was waiting for him, and trying to make Watson feel okay about the whole thing. John's speech to Sherlock's grave at the end of the episode is another sort of note, though one that he doesn't know that Sherlock receives; similar to Holmes watching the search party—led by Watson—as they look for his own body.

" _His heart turned to lead."_ This is a quote from "The Final Problem," when Watson realizes that something terrible has happened to Holmes.

" _Mycroft arranged for Sherlock to be buried in a graveyard near the ancestral stomping grounds of the Holmes clan in Yorkshire."_ The only reference to Holmes' extended family (outside of Mycroft) is a comment in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter" that Holmes' ancestors were "country squires." Some Holmes biographers, including Nick Rennison and William S. Baring-Gould, hypothesized that Holmes was born and spent his early childhood in Yorkshire.

" _But let me tell you this. You were the best man, and the most human human being that I have ever known and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie."_ In "The Final Problem," Watson's tribute to Holmes (intended to be Arthur Conan Doyle's final words about the detective) describes him "as the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known."

 **Author's Note**

 **The Fear of Mycroft**

After watching the third series of _Sherlock_ (spoiler alert, hey hey), I can now say this without reservation: Mycroft Holmes frightens me. Even more than Moriarty. Even though Moriarty is the one I'm supposed to be frightened of.

In the Canon, Mycroft is basically a variation of Sherlock: corpulent instead of reedy, imperturbable instead of mercurial. Mycroft's intelligence (which exceeds Holmes') engenders confidence and competence, in spite of his distaste for legwork. But in the show _Sherlock_ , Mycroft is basically a secret agent—less James Bond, though, and more O'Brien, the Thought Police agent from _1984_ ; or V, putting Evey in a prison cell in _V For Vendetta_.

Here is what I mean when I say I'm frightened of Mycroft: Moriarty is frightening in the micro. His body language and speaking style are scary because they turn on a dime, and because his outward mannerisms in no way reflect whatever's going on inside his head. Where Sherlock is all about perceiving order and pattern, Moriarty is all about chaos creation. He might do just about anything at any given moment in time. And that's a scary person to stand next to.

But in the macro, Moriarty is utterly predictable. He is working against the Holmes brothers. He's a terrorist and a crime lord. He is Loki. He's the destructive half of Shiva. He's the Erinyes, he's Eris, he's the Bacchanalia risen from the dead, dancing through London and leaving death in his wake. Whatever he's doing at any given moment, you can assume that it is bad, and react accordingly.

In contrast, Mycroft is stability. He works for one of the most stable and long-lived governments in the modern world. Mycroft is happy to be Atlas, holding up the sky of the British Empire. Mycroft does the dirty work that keeps the rest of us happy and safe in our beds at night. In the macro, Mycroft is a stabilizing force.

But in the micro? Mycroft is Abraham sacrificing Isaac. _"Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac whom thou lovest, and get thee to the land of Moria, and make of him a burnt offering."_ He's Agamemnon, sacrificing his own family for war. Mycroft is the thin, invisible line you cross when you lose yourself. And what's troubling is not so much Mycroft's willingness to sacrifice his family members, or his resignation in the face of sending Sherlock off on a suicide mission, but rather his inability to even see that as a sacrifice, or to identify it as a possible source of pain. I'm pretty sure that Mycroft is going to get Sherlock killed someday, and if he ever feels upset about it, it will be about the necessity of Sherlock's death—as Abraham felt sad to lose his son, even as he took him to Moria, and tied him to a rock, and would have killed him with his own hands with not a peep of dissent if not for the sudden appearance of a ram calling the whole thing off. Mycroft has no idea that Sherlock might have been lonely during his two dead years. It doesn't occur to him that that may have been difficult for his little brother. And that, more than anything, is what ensures that unless Sherlock is very careful and very guarded, sooner or later he's going to get crushed under the wheels of his big brother's wagon.

Mycroft is not a reassuring person to stand next to, because at no time does your welfare ever cross his mind. He doesn't think of small details like your life, or even his own. He's only concerned with the macro—which, for him, is Britain—and will sacrifice anything to protect it. Contrast that to John Watson, the archetype of a loyal friend. Once John decides that he's on your side, he would, I'm quite sure, allow the British empire to come tumbling down before betraying a friend. John will sacrifice himself, but not to make that choice for anybody else. He's basically (along with, to a certain extent, Mrs Hudson) the only relationship that Sherlock has that isn't either conditional or obligatory.

 _I may be on the side of the angels, but don't think for one second that I am one of them._ What Sherlock understands (thanks to his brother), that Moriarty either forgot or never knew, is that the angels are made of the exact same stuff as all of Hell's demons, and that both can burn you.

Which is to say, yeah. Season Four soon please.


End file.
